Artist Susan Philipsz Commands Our Attention With ‘Separated Strings’, Conveying Truth Of The Holocaust

Pavel Haas was deported to Auschwitz in mid-October 1944 and immediately killed, but his music survives to remind us of horrors of recent history.

Haas studied with preeminent Czech composer Leoš Janáček, and became renowned in his own right, composing for theater and film music, such as Karel Ĉapek’s notorious RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots). When war broke out, Haas’ prolific artistic career was disrupted. In 1941, he was sent to the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German-occupied Czechoslovakia) where the SS established the Theresienstadt Ghetto. He overcame depression and resumed writing several works that became highly regarded classics of that time.

Sharing stories of creative triumph even in times of terror is critical to humanity.

When we enter the downstairs gallery at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York’s Chelsea, we’re transported back to that dark era that we must always bring to light for future generations. Glasgow-born, Berlin-based artist Susan Philipsz (1965) presents a new film on two screens, Study for Strings Sokol Terezín, to tell Haas’ story.

Haas also wrote Study for String Orchestra, which was performed under threat for a Nazi propaganda film, Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet (1944). The film described the death camp as a “spa town” where elderly Jews could “retire in safety.” In reality, an estimated 140,000 Jews were held at Theresienstadt before being deported to killing centers in German-occupied territories, and 33,000 died while imprisoned in Theresienstadt. The “documentary” portrays Haas’ Study for String Orchestra performed in a large concert hall by the Terezín String Orchestra.

On view through February 25, Separated Strings draws us into two decades of Philipsz’s exploration of the psychological and sculptural potential of sound. Her immersive environments almost always include newly recorded iterations of heavily researched historical musical compositions, which convey ponderous and powerful emotion through a range of technique, from studio recordings by professional musicians to recordings of her own voice. The installations often include images, objects, film, and architectural interventions that enhance the visitor’s embrace of their surroundings. Consistent themes of loss, longing, hope, and return universalize the experience, blurring the boundaries between the individual and the collective, the public and the private, the internal and external.

Such sound art operates at a sometimes surreal level, as if we’re within the vibrations themselves while experiencing vibrations as a group phenomenon. Such a setting demands the respect and silence of visitors in order to amplify the experience for everyone. There’s no excuse for muttering into your iPhone as if you just got a deal-breaking call to avoid confronting art that tells an essential narrative that too many folks prefer to ignore. This is an unfortunate limitation of visual art and it’s where Philipsz blazes a trail. You must hear what she’s showing you. You can’t look away.

Haas’ story is woven into the core of Philipsz’s seminal work, Study for Strings (2012), which isolates the cello and viola sections of the composition and scatters the recordings across the tracks of Kassel Hauptbahnhof during dOCUMENTA (13). For the new film, Philipsz visited the former camp in search of the concert site. She re-installed her version of Study for Strings throughout the building and filmed the results. One camera follows the cello recordings while the other follows the viola, in an eerie dance of sound overtaking the building, the concert venue, and other rooms before settling in the menacing basement. The site-specific re-staging serves to document the experience of distance and separation, absence and loss.

After pausing on a heavy breath, we approach the upstairs gallery, where Philipsz presents a 12 channel sound installation that isolates the violin section of the composition. She recorded each violinist playing each tone solo on the chromatic scale. Isolating each tone enabled Philipsz to materially deconstruct the composition.

Separated Strings deserves your attention, so silence your iPhone before you walk into the gallery.