Pipilotti Rist (Artist Post) 2/21

Work

Bio

Pipilotti Rist is a Swiss video artist, widely acclaimed for her music video-like pieces. Rist's video work examines issues such as sexuality, the female body and gender issues. Often times, the artist manipulates attributes of the video to distort the subject, which seems to emphasize the concept as well as implicate the viewer as to their role as a viewer of the subject. Rist's work has been exhibited worldwide, and was shown at the Venice Biennial.

Quotations

"Pipilotti Rist's lush multimedia installations playfully and provocatively merge fantasy and reality."

"MoMA | Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)." MoMA | The Museum of Modern Art. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

"She doesn't want you to stand stiffly observing her art, but rather to relax and participate in it—walk through those tunnels, eat that apple! She provides the very best kind of evidence that in the 21st century, artists can put anything they like into their art and not necessarily end up with chaos."

Ayers, Robert. "Pipilotti Rist: The Art World Tease | The New York Observer." Observer.com - New York Politics, Media News, Real Estate, Fashion, Gossip, Movies, Books, Theater, and the Arts | The New York Observer. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. .

Relates

Pipilotti Rist's work relates to where I am headed with my own work. I have begun to experiment with video and will be applying a similar digital manipulation over the processed piece. The distortion in my work seeks to comment on the science of genetics and genetic engineering, obsolescence, as well as issues of technology and permanence. (More specifically, digital photography.) Integrating video and the moving image into the work opens the discussion to the role of such media when commenting on the media it is replacing. Rist uses manipulation in her videos as well. For example, in her breakthrough piece, I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much, she portrayed herself, bare-breasted, dancing in front of the camera. The video was very distorted and blurry, commenting on the viewer and the act of viewing. Like Rist, I plan on making the video difficult to view, physically, and thereby adding a similar element of awareness for the media as well as the subject.


Interview




http://www.sfmoma.org/multimedia/videos/204



Gallery

http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/25/pipilotti-rist/biography/


Website

http://www.pipilottirist.net/begin/body.html