Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, a pioneer of spatial video art, has been a central figure within the international art scene since the mid-1980s. Rist’s career rise coincided with the vast technical advancements seen over the past four decades, a reality that Rist has responded to through playful exploration of new possibilities. Through large video projections and digital manipulation, she has developed immersive, color vivid installations. With her curious and lavish recordings of nature and her investigative editing, Rist seeks to justify the privileged position we are born with in nature, simply by being human. Her installations and exhibition concepts are expansive, finding within the mind, senses, and body the possibility for endless discovery and poetical invention. For Rist, showing vulnerability is a sign of strength on which she draws for inspiration. As she herself puts it, “beside the energy-intensive exploration of the geographical world, pictures, films, and sounds have been and are the spaces into which we can escape… The projector is the flamethrower, the space is the vortex and you are the pearl within.”

Rist has had countless solo and group exhibitions, and video screenings worldwide. Her recent solo exhibitions Come On Honey… at Kunsthalle Krems (2015); Your Saliva is My Diving Suit of the Ocean of Pain at Kunsthaus Zürich (2016); Pixel Forest at New Museum New York (2016 – 2017) and ‘Sip My Ocean’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (2017-2018) all resulted in record-breaking attendance numbers for each institution. Pipilotti Rist: Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor  is the first West Coast survey of the internationally renowned Swiss media artist, on view during winter 2021 at LAMOCA.

In partnership with the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Our 2020-2021 Series is brought to you with the support of our streaming partners, Detroit Public Television and PBS Books.

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Image: Open My Glade (Flatten), 2000, video installation by Pipilotti Rist (video still) © Pipilotti Rist. Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine