Pipilotti Rist. Dein Speichel ist mein Taucheranzug im Ozean des Schmerzes

In 2016 the Kunsthaus Zürich devoted a large exhibition to one of the most prominent Swiss contemporary artists: Pipilotti Rist is among the pioneers and most important representatives of video art, and she has acquired an international reputation with her cryptically ironic videos and sensually playful video installations. In the exhibition early works from the 1980s – such as her single-channel videos – were combined with later object assemblages and spatial video installations. In addition, there was a work made especially for this exhibition, ‘Pixelwald’, an installation with chains of colored lights, which drew the public into its ban and invited them to linger. The constantly changing forest of lights represented the idea ‘of a monitor exploding into the room,’ as the artist described it. Both artistically and technically, ‘Pixelwald’ was an innovation for her. Rist combined her individual works into a colorful, enchanted total installation, which clearly burst open the format of a classical retrospective. The show, which was curated by Mirjam Varadinis in close cooperation with the artist, was a huge success and, with 90,000 visitors, it attracted more than any other exhibition of contemporary art in the history of the Kunsthaus.