Pipilotti Rist - Let Your Hair Down
In Pipilotti Rist’s installation ‘Let Your Hair Down’ you can leave everyday things behind for a moment, surrender yourself to the video art as you literally float in the air. Visitors to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen can climb into a large, colourful, thick rope net and watch the video in the installation.
Han Nefkens Foundation
Pipilotti Rist made ‘Let Your Hair Down’ at the invitation of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Han Nefkens Foundation in response to the successful exhibition Elixir: The Video Organism of Pipilotti Rist (2009). The objective of the Han Nefkens Foundation is to encourage contemporary art and artists at an international level and introduce them to a new audience.
Selection of videos
The video installation is permanently on display above the stairwell in the museum’s open foyer. Visitors can also climb into the installation from the first floor, lie back in the net and watch other videos in the collection. Zap between video art by Karin van Dam, John Bock, Yu-Chin Tseng, Joost Conijn, Fischli & Weiss and others.
I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much, 1986
The work of Pipilotti Rist (Grabs 1962) is characterised by a strong connection with popular culture, music and television. In ‘I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much’ we see Pipilotti Rist dancing and singing. She repeatedly paraphrases John Lennon’s opening line from the Beatles song ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun’ (1968). Rist’s video seems like a parody of music video culture.
(Entlastungen), Pipilottis Fehler, 1988
Pipilotti Rist’s early works quickly became classics of video art. Popular culture and the human body are recurring themes. Rist often plays the principal role in her video works. In ‘(Entlastungen) Pipilotti´s Fehler’ she repeatedly collapses to the music of the female rock band Les Reines Prochaines, of which Rist was the vocalist from 1988 until 1994.
Als der Bruder meiner Mutter geboren wurde, 1963
Footage of childbirth is framed by a winter mountain landscape. The cut, delivery and suturing are presented in an almost scientific manner. The matter-of-fact quality of the imagery contrasts with the title, which evokes the birth as a highly personal memory. The song is sung by Rist herself. Please note: this video contains explicit images.
Pickelporno, 1992
In this video Pipilotti Rist zooms in on individual parts of the body. Bold perspectives, breasts, eyes, toes, and pubic hair, swell to oversized and uncustomary dimensions. The camera assumes the perspective of the sexual partner, and with her macro-shots the artist pursues the question of how to make sexual feelings visible. Close-ups of the body are combined with images of nature and the universe. The placement of a globe between a woman’s legs calls to mind Courbet’s famous painting ‘L’origine du monde’ (The Origin of the World, 1866).
Blutclip, 1993
The human body and notions of femininity are also central to this work. The principal role is played by Rists’s own body and her menstrual fluid. As in ‘Pickelporno’, here too Rist combines close-ups of a naked body with images of nature and outer space. This links the female body to fertility, the origins of the world and the miracle of human existence.
I’m a Victim of This Song, 1995
Rist’s work is characterised by a strong connection with popular culture, music and television. In several of her works she ‘covers’ a pop song in her own unique way. ‘I’m a Victim of This Song’ is such a work. Towards the end the artist screams the line ‘I don’t wanna fall in love!’ with increasing volume. At first, this shrieking female voice suggests a sense of panic and anxiety, but it also represents a powerful moment in an otherwise rather sentimental song.
Always on view
The video installation is permanently on display above the stairwell in the museum’s open foyer. Visitors can also climb into the installation from the first floor, lie back in the net and watch other videos in the collection. Zap between video art by Karin van Dam, John Bock, Yu-Chin Tseng, Joost Conijn, Fischli & Weiss and others.
