“Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest” at the New Museum

Over the past thirty years, Rist (b. 1962) has achieved international renown as a pioneer of video art and multimedia installations. Her mesmerizing works envelop viewers in sensual, vibrantly colored kaleidoscopic projections that fuse the natural world with the technological sublime. Referring to her art as a “glorification of the wonder of evolution,” Rist maintains a deep sense of curiosity that pervades her explorations of physical and psychological experiences. Her works bring viewers into unexpected, all-consuming encounters with the textures, forms, and functions of the living universe around us.

Occupying the three main floors of the Museum, “Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest” will be the most comprehensive presentation of Rist’s work in New York to date. It will include work spanning the artist’s entire career, from her early single-channel videos from the 1980s that explore the representation of the female body in popular culture to her recent expansive video installations that transform architectural spaces into massive dreamlike environments enhanced by hypnotic musical scores. Featuring a new installation created specifically for this presentation, this exhibition will also reveal connections between the development of Rist’s art and the evolution of contemporary technologies. Moving from the television monitor to the cinema screen, and from the intimacy of the smartphone to the communal consumption of images and soundscapes, this survey will chart the ways in which Rist’s work has fused the biological with the electronic in the ecstasy of communication.