Photo by Brian Slater. Courtesy FACT, Liverpool

Pipilotti Rist, installation view of "Gravity Be My Friend" at FACT, Liverpool (2008)

October 2008 Reviews

Manifesta 7

Jeff Koons

Chantal Akerman

Painting: Now and Forever, Part II

Erkka Nissinen

There is No There There

Elaine Duigenan

Kerry James Marshall

Peter Saul

John Massey

Bridget Riley

Thomas Helbig

Armando Andrade Tudela

Gary Hume

Marine Hugonnier

Pipilotti Rist The Appendix: Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Pipilotti Rist, and Paul H-O The Art of Eating Doug Aitken French Gallery Rallies 1,000 Artists Against AIDS Bright Lights and Night Swimming Public Art Fund Bowls for Bucks Pipilotti Rist Wins Joan Miró Prize

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I didn’t catch Homo Sapiens Sapiens and A Liberty Statue (both 2005), the first two installments of a film trilogy by Pipilotti Rist, but I don’t feel that this omission is especially detrimental to my understanding or enjoyment of the final part—Gravity Be My Friend (2007), which receives its UK premier at FACT as part of a miniretrospective of films and installations by the Swiss artist. Stumbling sock-footed into semidarkness you are quickly reminded of the excursions and distractions that, in Rist’s work, supersede anything so quaint as narrative fulfillment. To experience the video element of the installation you recline on one of two stratified carpet islands whose biomorphic forms echo those of screens suspended from the ceiling. Look up and you’re plunged into a pond where a nymph and her sibling frolic among the Nymphaea, or you’re led along a woodland floor through cascading autumn leaves. There’s a hallucinogenic ripeness to this, as well as a burgeoning, probably dangerous, sexuality. This is the archetypal Rist setup: she captivates and perturbs, sometimes simultaneously. Concentrating on subject matter alone, many read only kookiness into her work. Those who recognize these scrambled emotions from childhood or the beginnings of a love affair have a better grasp of her rousing art. Despite appearances, this isn’t a chill-out zone.

"Pipilotti Rist" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.