Pipilotti Rist was born on June 21, 1962 in Rheintal, Switzerland. She likes red beets a lot. Her focus is video/audio installations because there is room in them for everything (painting, technology, language, music, movement, flowing pictures, poetry, commotion, premonitions of death, sex and friendliness) – like in a compact handbag. Her opinion is: Art's task is to contribute to evolution, to encourage the mind, to guarantee a detached view of social changes, to conjure up positive energies, to create sensuousness, to reconcile reason and instinct, to research possibilities, and to destroy clichés and prejudices.
Rist’s work has been exhibited widely at international museums and festivals including the biennials in São Paulo, Venice, Istanbul, the Caribbean, Santa Fe, and Sydney. Her multimedia video works such as, “I‘m Not The Girl Who Misses Much” (1986)‚ “Sip My Ocean” (1996), “Remake of the Weekend” (1998), and her Public Art Fund, NY commissioned “Open My Glade” (2000) blur the boundaries between visual art and popular culture, exploring the unfamiliar in the everyday. Her lush, seductive imagery employs the idiom of commercial advertising and music videos to create a highly individual artistic language which is informed by her past experiences in a music band and as a set designer.
“Sip My Ocean” (1996) marked the first time Rist extended beyond the boundaries of the monitor to incorporate video into the architecture of the exhibition space through projection. Since that time, she has become known for producing immersive installations, creating transformative experiences for viewers with fluid and hypnotic imagery often focusing on the convergence of nature and technology. One of Rist’s most recent pieces, “Pixel Forest” (2016), has taken this a step further by placing the audience within the screen itself; surrounded by thousands of resin encased LED lights, visitors wind their way through as each “pixel” is individually programmed to emit light in various colors and hues.
In 2009 Rist released her first feature film entitled “Pepperminta”, the story of an "anarchist of the imagination" who lives according to her own rules (www.pepperminta.ch/en). The film has been screened at film festivals and theaters around the world. Recent solo exhibitions include: Behind Your Eyelid – Pipilotti Rist, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022); Pipilotti Rist: Your Brain to Me, My Brain to You, National Museum of Qatar, Doha, Qatar (2022); Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, California (2021-22); Pipilotti Rist: Your Eye Is My Island, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan (2021); Pipilotti Rist: Open My Glade, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2019); Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest, LUMA Arles, Arles, France (2018); Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia (2017-18); Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest and Worry Will Vanish, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (2017); Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest, New Museum, New York, NY (2016-17); and Pipilotti Rist: Your Saliva is my Diving Suit in the Ocean of Pain, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland (2016).
For more information, please contact Lauren Wittels at lauren@luhringaugustine.com.