Pipilotti Rist

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, lousy, flowing pictures, poetry, commotion, premonition of death, sex and friendliness) - like in a compact handbag. Her opinon is: Arts 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." Source

Rist studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Vienna, through 1986. She later studied video at the School of Design (Schule für Gestaltung) in Basel, Switzerland. During her time in school she worked in Super 8 films and was a part of a band called Les Reines Prochaines.

She has won numerous awards for her work including the Premio 2000 of the Biennale di Venezia in 1997.

Quotes from Interviews:

"To me meloncholy also means reconciliation with the imperfect" Source VIDEO

"The whole question of how to put art into regular life is what interests me the most. I treat art as a service. I think of myself as a service worker." Source

Pipilotti Links

Videos

I'm not the girl who misses much 1987
"It only took me a couple of weeks and I did the whole thing myself. I was in heavy love pain, and in a way this work saved my life. I remember when I had it finished; I thought it really showed what and how I felt at that moment. It was a complete survival strategy! [Laughs.]" Source

Entslastlungen AKA Pipilolottis Fehler 1988

Pickelporno 1992

I'm a Victim of this Song 1995

Sip my Ocean 1996

Ever is Over All 1997

Homo Sapiens Sapiens 2005

Installations

Installation of Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) 2008

MoMA commissioned the Swiss artist to create a monumental site-specific installation that immerses the Museum's Marron Atrium in twenty-five-foot-high moving images. Visitors will be able to experience the work while walking through the space or sitting upon a sculptural seating island designed by the artist. Video

Yoga event led by Alexandra Auder in the installation.

People looking at Elixir 2009

Elixir in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) is the first major survey of Rists recent installations. It is a Gesamtkunstwerk, comprising nine installations. By fusing the individual works Pipilotti Rist has transformed the museum into a place for extraordinary experiences and encounters. The exhibitions floor plan resembles a living being, with a stomach, heart and lungs; a video organism that has grown organically from Rists lively oeuvre.

Full-length Movie

Pepperminta (Ewelina Guzik) is an anarchist of the imagination. She lives in a futuristic rainbow villa and according to her own rules. Colors are the young woman’s best friends and strawberries are her pets. She knows the most amazing remedies to free people of their fears. Pepperminta‘s wish is for everyone to see the world in her favorite colors. Werwen (Sven Pippig), a young plump and shy man yet whose sex appeal Pepperminta finds highly attractive, and the beautiful Edna (Sabine Timoteo), who talks to tulips, join her on her passionate mission.

These three musketeers of a different kind set out to fight for a more humane world. Wherever the gang appears, everything is turned upside down and people’s lives are transformed in the most miraculous and wondrous of ways. Source