“I’m not really interested in unrealised work. I want people to take part in my creation, and if they can’t, I feel I have failed.” - Pipilotti Rist

À la belle étoile (Under the Sky) is a showpiece projected onto the ground that invites the public to penetrate the mental space conjured up by Pipilotti Rist. The work to be presented at SAM at 8Q is adapted from the larger original presentation shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 2007 for the Centre’s 30th anniversary. The projection can be seen from various levels: from the piazza itself or from the passageways on each floor of the building. Visitors on the piazza will be engulfed by the artist’s surrealist images and in turn, participate in the art-piece. Meanwhile, the video can be seen in its entirety from the surrounding passageways overlooking the piazza.

Rist was born in 1962 in Grabs in Switzerland and works as a videographer and musician in Zurich. Her works result from a montage of sounds and images of which she is simultaneously producer, director and quite often the protagonist as well.

The major themes in Rist’s videos are the difference between the sexes, identity and femininity, yet not necessarily advancing a clear feminist message: “I am grateful for feminism. But women did it once so I don’t have to go back to what they did”. She expresses great interest in the culture of entertainment and in particular television, which she considers to be the cornerstone of popular culture. She cites Nam June Paik amongst her influences: “[What] Paik’s work and mine have in common [is] that we both try to draw the viewer inside it. At first you look at the box, at the screen or projection, but when you concentrate on the sequences you feel as if you’re inside the box, behind the glass, within the wall. You forget everything around you and concentrate completely on the box: you’re swallowed.”

Under the Sky encapsulates this idea as it welcomes the visitor into the heart of the image and places him in strange environments. The sequences carry the characters of Chris and Ewelina, as well as the spectators, away into nature, the cosmos and the city. Via a mise en abyme of images, the spectator plunges into Ewelina’s mouth and finds himself carried off by lava flow. The high-angle and low-angle shots create confusion in perspective and scale, and give the spectator an impression of weightlessness and flutter. This feeling of lightness is further accentuated by the seagull camera style and the soundtrack composed by the artist. Rist hopes the spectator will arrive at a state of mental flux in which almost anything seems possible.

Diane-Sophie Girin

Translated by Yin Ker