PIPILOTTI RIST
YOUR SALIVA IS MY DIVING SUIT IN THE OCEAN OF PAIN
Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1 - Zürich
26/2/2016 - 8/5/2016
Pipilotti Rist is internationally renowned as one of the pioneers of video art. She lives right here in Zurich. Yet her last institutional solo exhibition in this city was held more than fifteen years ago. So it is high time for a major show. Under the title Your Saliva is my Diving Suit in the Ocean of Pain, the Kunsthaus presents an overview of Pipilotti Rist’s work from 1986 to the present day. The title is a line from an early song by Pipilotti Rist and Anders Guggisberg that playfully and atmospherically hints at an additional level of meaning to the exhibition.
Sensual, exhilarating and fearless, Pipilotti Rist continually challenges conventions and taboos in her art. This exhibition presents historic key works such as the famous single-channel videos from the 1980s as well as completely new works that have been created specially for the Kunsthaus. This show is not a retrospective in the classic sense; it is conceived as a unified installation in which unexpected connections between different groups of works become evident.
The most recent work in the exhibition is Pixelwald (Pixel Forest, 2016). It consists of 3,000 LED lights suspended in space on strands of cable that merge into a magical image forest which visitors can wander through. Each LED is individually controlled by a video signal, so that the forest of lights is constantly changing. The end result resembles a moving, Pointillist 3D image, or what the artist herself describes as a ‘screen exploding in space’.
In the middle of the gallery, Rist has established a kind of collective home – and in it she presents around two dozen object assemblages and video sculptures from the last two decades. The ‘home’ recalls more than just domestic cosiness: it is also a reference to Ignaz Heim, a 19th-century musician and composer after whom the Heimplatz in front of the Kunsthaus was named. In the last third of the gallery, you can see the celebrated video works from the 1990s such as Sip My Ocean (1996) and Ever Is Over All (1997); they alternate with the large-scale projection Worry Will Vanish Horizon (2014), which is being shown in Zurich for the first time. The exhibition features a new approach to showing these works: the three videos do not run at the same time, but follow one another in a kind of choreographed sequence.
Pipilotti Rist was born in Grabs, Rheintal, Switzerland, in 1962. Since making her mark on the international art scene in the mid 1980s and 1990s with single-channel videos, such as I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) and Pickelporno (Pimple Porno, 1992), she has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and is considered one of the most important video artists of the present day. In 2009, she was awarded the Joan Miró Prize by the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, for her extensive artistic creativity and her outstanding contribution to the contemporary art scene. For her first feature film Pepperminta (2009), Rist was awarded the Extraordinary Award from the President of the panel of judges of the sixth Seville European Film Festival in Spain, and in 2010, she won the Cutting the Edge Award from the Miami International European Film Festival. In 2012, Rist was awarded the Harper's Bazaar China Art Prize, in 2013, the Zurich Festival Prize and in 2014, the Prix Meret Oppenheim. Solo exhibitions in recent years have included Komm Schatz, wir stellen die Medien um & fangen nochmals von vorne an, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2015); Gentle Wave in Your Eye Fluid, Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2013); Pipilotti Rist. A la belle étoile, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2012); Pipilotti Rist – Spear to Heaven!, LEEUM – Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2012); Blutbetriebene Kameras und quellende Räume, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2012); Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery, London, England (2011) and Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim (2012); Parasimpatico, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Cinema Manzoni, Milan, Italy (2011); Pipilotti Rist. Partit amistós – sentiments electrónics, Fundació Joan Miró & Centre Cultura Caixa Girona Fontana d’Or, Barcelona/Girona, Spain (2010); Elixir – The video organism of Pipilotti Rist, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2009); Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Metres), MoMA, New York, USA (2008).
Image: Pipilotti Rist, Worry Will Vanish Horizon, 2014
Audio video installation, music by Anders Guggisberg
Installation view, Hauser & Wirth, London, 2014
Photo: Alex Delfanne, Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine
YOUR SALIVA IS MY DIVING SUIT IN THE OCEAN OF PAIN
Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1 - Zürich
26/2/2016 - 8/5/2016
Pipilotti Rist is internationally renowned as one of the pioneers of video art. She lives right here in Zurich. Yet her last institutional solo exhibition in this city was held more than fifteen years ago. So it is high time for a major show. Under the title Your Saliva is my Diving Suit in the Ocean of Pain, the Kunsthaus presents an overview of Pipilotti Rist’s work from 1986 to the present day. The title is a line from an early song by Pipilotti Rist and Anders Guggisberg that playfully and atmospherically hints at an additional level of meaning to the exhibition.
Sensual, exhilarating and fearless, Pipilotti Rist continually challenges conventions and taboos in her art. This exhibition presents historic key works such as the famous single-channel videos from the 1980s as well as completely new works that have been created specially for the Kunsthaus. This show is not a retrospective in the classic sense; it is conceived as a unified installation in which unexpected connections between different groups of works become evident.
The most recent work in the exhibition is Pixelwald (Pixel Forest, 2016). It consists of 3,000 LED lights suspended in space on strands of cable that merge into a magical image forest which visitors can wander through. Each LED is individually controlled by a video signal, so that the forest of lights is constantly changing. The end result resembles a moving, Pointillist 3D image, or what the artist herself describes as a ‘screen exploding in space’.
In the middle of the gallery, Rist has established a kind of collective home – and in it she presents around two dozen object assemblages and video sculptures from the last two decades. The ‘home’ recalls more than just domestic cosiness: it is also a reference to Ignaz Heim, a 19th-century musician and composer after whom the Heimplatz in front of the Kunsthaus was named. In the last third of the gallery, you can see the celebrated video works from the 1990s such as Sip My Ocean (1996) and Ever Is Over All (1997); they alternate with the large-scale projection Worry Will Vanish Horizon (2014), which is being shown in Zurich for the first time. The exhibition features a new approach to showing these works: the three videos do not run at the same time, but follow one another in a kind of choreographed sequence.
Pipilotti Rist was born in Grabs, Rheintal, Switzerland, in 1962. Since making her mark on the international art scene in the mid 1980s and 1990s with single-channel videos, such as I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) and Pickelporno (Pimple Porno, 1992), she has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and is considered one of the most important video artists of the present day. In 2009, she was awarded the Joan Miró Prize by the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, for her extensive artistic creativity and her outstanding contribution to the contemporary art scene. For her first feature film Pepperminta (2009), Rist was awarded the Extraordinary Award from the President of the panel of judges of the sixth Seville European Film Festival in Spain, and in 2010, she won the Cutting the Edge Award from the Miami International European Film Festival. In 2012, Rist was awarded the Harper's Bazaar China Art Prize, in 2013, the Zurich Festival Prize and in 2014, the Prix Meret Oppenheim. Solo exhibitions in recent years have included Komm Schatz, wir stellen die Medien um & fangen nochmals von vorne an, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2015); Gentle Wave in Your Eye Fluid, Times Museum, Guangzhou, China (2013); Pipilotti Rist. A la belle étoile, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (2012); Pipilotti Rist – Spear to Heaven!, LEEUM – Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2012); Blutbetriebene Kameras und quellende Räume, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2012); Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery, London, England (2011) and Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim (2012); Parasimpatico, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Cinema Manzoni, Milan, Italy (2011); Pipilotti Rist. Partit amistós – sentiments electrónics, Fundació Joan Miró & Centre Cultura Caixa Girona Fontana d’Or, Barcelona/Girona, Spain (2010); Elixir – The video organism of Pipilotti Rist, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2009); Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Metres), MoMA, New York, USA (2008).
Image: Pipilotti Rist, Worry Will Vanish Horizon, 2014
Audio video installation, music by Anders Guggisberg
Installation view, Hauser & Wirth, London, 2014
Photo: Alex Delfanne, Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine
