Bienal de Pontevedra

This piece by Susan Philipsz was originally conceived for the National Gallery in London, where it was presented alongside Hans Holbein's painting The Ambassadors. Through sound, Philipsz explores what happens when something is incomplete, when an essential part is missing. The artist revisits a powerful image in Holbein's work that has always struck her: a lute with a broken string, traditionally interpreted as a symbol of tension, loss and disharmony. Inspired by this idea of dissonance, she decides to remove a string from a contemporary violin and record the possible sounds with the remaining strings. The three resulting notes – G flat, B and E – intersect, overlap and emerge from different loudspeakers located in the exhibition space, making hearable, paradoxically, what is missing. The result, far from being strident, is unsettling and creates a constant feeling of instability. As in many of her works, Philipsz avoids direct narratives and is instead more interested in what is suggested, in what does not sound. Thus, the broken string becomes a symbol of loss, but also a starting point, a way of beginning again from what remains, from what can still be reconstructed.