PIPILOTTI RIST

For Rist, showing vulnerability is a sign of strength on which she draws for inspiration. With her curious and lavish recordings of nature (to which humans belong as an animal), and her investigative editing, Rist seeks to justify the privileged position we are born with, simply by being human. Her installations and exhibition concepts are expansive, finding within the mind, senses and body the possibility for endless discovery and poetical invention. Pixel Forest (2016), made from 3,000 thousand LEDs hung on strings, resembles a movie screen that has exploded into the room, allowing viewers an immersive walk through 3-dimensional video. As she herself puts it, ‘beside the energy-intensive exploration of the geographical world, pictures, films and sounds have been and are the spaces into which we can escape... The projector is the flamethrower, the space is the vortex and you are the pearl within.’

Since 1984, Rist has had countless solo and group exhibitions, and video screenings worldwide. Her recent solo exhibitions Come On Honey… at Kunsthalle Krems (2015), Your Saliva is My Diving Suit of the Ocean of Pain at Kunsthaus Zürich (2016), Pixel Forest at New Museum New York (2016–2017), and Sip My Ocean at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (2017–2018), all resulted in record-breaking attendance numbers for each institution.

Courtesy Hauser & Wirth