Pipilotti Rist Gets Her Hands on M+ Hong Kong

Rist said she hopes her video work will help viewers 'recognise the immense power, tenderness, and potential contained within their two hands.'

Swiss artist Pipliotti Rist will take over the facade of Hong Kong's M+ museum during Art Basel Hong Kong (ABHK).

Created for M+, Hand Me Your Trust (2023) is a video work that shows disembodied human hands floating through space.

'From the way we caress, draw, and sign, down to our fingerprint, which acts as our own personal signature, Rist ponders the importance of the hand, as not only a practical and versatile tool that does our bidding, but one that is innately inscribed with our own unique, personal character,' said M+ curators Pauline J. Yao and Sunny Cheung in a statement.

Hand Me Your Trust will screen 7–9pm nightly from 18 March to 21 May, and at the same time every Saturday and Sunday from 22 May to 17 June.

'I hope that the images and philosophies presented in Hand Me Your Trust may leap off the Facade and extend far beyond in its impact, empowering audiences to recognise the immense power, tenderness and potential contained within their two hands,' Rist said.

Hand Me Your Trust was commissioned by M+ with support from UBS and Art Basel.

Art Basel today announced the artists creating 13 outsized works for their Encounters section, which returns for the first time since 2019.

Curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, this year's Encounters include a vast blue textile installation by Jaffa Lam, a Pachira plant chandelier by Trevor Yeung, and Gimhongsok's mannequins wearing animal heads reminiscent of those worn by furries.

Other Encounters artists include Danh Võ, David Altmejd, Shubigi Rao, and Nabuqi.

ABHK will gather 177 galleries at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 21 to 25 March. That's up from 130 galleries in 2022, but still down significantly from 242 in 2019, prior to the pandemic. —[O]