Pipilotti Rist

(Absolutions) Pipilotti's Mistakes

Precisely edited to the start-stop rhythm of a martial beat and post-punk rock music, Absolutions glories in organized disjunction, juxtaposing images of the artist collapsing to the ground with bursts of wildly scrambled electronic distortion.

Here Is Always Somewhere Else

The life and work of enigmatic Dutch/Californian conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader, who in 1975 disappeared under mysterious circumstances at sea in the smallest boat ever to cross the Atlantic. As seen through the eyes of fellow emigrant filmmaker René Daalder, the picture becomes a sweeping overview of contemporary art films as well as an epic saga of the transformative powers of the ocean.

Kulturplatz

Blutclip

Rist's body is the canvas in this surreal montage. Unflinching displays of the artist's own menstrual blood are juxtaposed with images of gemstones, while swooping, close-up shots of Rist's arms and legs are followed by archival footage of lunar fly-bys, suggesting the ease with which visual culture has abstracted the female body into a beautiful but alien natural phenomenon.

Ever Is Over All

Ever Is Over All envelops viewers in two slow-motion projections on adjacent walls. In one a roving camera focuses on red flowers in a field of lush vegetation. The spellbinding lull this imagery creates harmonizes with the projection to its left, which features a woman in sparkling ruby slippers promenading down a car-lined street. The fluidity of both scenes is disrupted when the woman violently smashes a row of car windshields with the long-stemmed flower she carries. As the vandal gains momentum with each gleeful strike of her wand, an approaching police officer smiles in approval, introducing comic tension into this whimsical and anarchistic scene. –MoMA

You Called Me Jacky

This video art work features Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist lip-synching to Kevin Coyne's 1973 song 'Jacky and Edna', her image superimposed with fleeting images seen from the window of a moving train.

Mother Floor

A constantly moving camera dives deep into Rist's mouth and pops out of her anus, only to whirl back up to her open mouth - giving you the sensation of being swallowed and expelled, swallowed and expelled, into infinity.