Pipilotti Rist

Curator Mirjam Varadinis, who has worked closely with Pipilotti Rist to set up the more than 1,000 sqm exhibition on view at the Kunsthaus Zurich and select a total of 41 works, has some unconventional perspectives in store.

Sometimes lying on the floor, visitors themselves become part of the sensual installations. Rist challenges our senses and draws us into a colourful and highly imaginative world. Playfully and humorously, she reflects on questions of perception and addresses feminist issues at the same time.

Elaborate technology encounters small and loving gestures. With installations such as The Innocent Collection (1985 – ca. 2032) and Nothing (1999), the Pipilotti Rist exhibition also extends to spaces outside the exhibition gallery: to the Heimplatz and the café in the entrance hall of the Kunsthaus. Here, Rist introduces a poetic touch and interrogates the functions and processes that are taken for granted in the museum context.

Also visible in the public spaces are the Tactile Lights (2016). These were developed by the artist in close cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich specially for the historic glass roof over the entrance hall of the Kunsthaus building by Karl Moser (1860-1936) and for one of the reliefs Amazon Battle’(1910) by Carl Burckhardt (1878-1923) on the facade. The installation in the roof space, with its “moving lights”, is designed to make an impression from outside, and can be seen from the Heimplatz and the adjoining site at night. It covers an area of several hundred square metres of glass together with the steel construction beneath and is visible far and wide during the night at certain times. The associated video projection is directed at one of the five neoclassical reliefs. The relief in question, on the north-west facade, depicts an Amazon who is fighting with a Greek and is set free by the projection.

until May 8, 2016
Pipilotti Rist
curated by Mirjam Varadinis
supported by Swiss Re – Partner for contemporary art
Kunsthaus Zurich
Heimplatz 1, Zurich