Das Zimmer, however, was used and abused as
intended, with dozens of people crowding onto the giant sofa and armchair
to watch 15 of Rist’s other films or just to socialize. People also
started sitting on the floor beneath the tree branch and hanging pieces of
plastic at the nearby Apple Tree Innocent On Diamond Hill (Apfelbaum
unschuldig auf dem Diamantenhugel) (2003), although here, too, they
remained against the wall. Given the mixed reactions to Gina’s mobile,
one wonders if many people voyaged through the museum bookstore for a
chance to try Closet Circuit (2000), in which Rist invites people
to explore their unseen parts and bodily waste on a closed circuit TV
through a camera placed inside a toilet.
Pipilotti
Rist, Apfelbaum unschuldig auf dem Diamantenhügel
(Apple
Tree Innocent On Diamond Hill), 2003,
installation
view Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokio
Photo
Hirotaka Yonekura, Courtesy Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
So
why did Rist choose the name Karakara, a Japanese onomatopoeic term
meaning a carefree, high-pitched laughter but also "thirst" for her first
exhibition? "I learned the word the first time I came to Japan. I like the
duality of physical thirst vs. thirst of the soul and spirit. The museum
is a place where you can quench your thirst and spiritual needs, where you
can take time off from your hectic daily life," she explains. "For the
audience, it’s a place where you can take a break and reflect, where you
can speak with yourself or the person you go with. It’s like there’s a
bubble protecting you, and by watching something together and talking, or
even just looking at each other, you are in this bubble, drinking
together." It’s a question she’s been asked 50 different times, she
laughs, and has answered "in 50 different ways."
Pipilotti
Rist, Selbstlos im Lavabad
(Selfless
In The Bath Of Lava), 1994,
audio
video installation (video still)
Courtesy
the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
|
|
Pipilotti Rist, I Couldn't Agree With
You More
1999, audio video
installation (video still)
Courtesy
of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London
|
Despite having participated in previous group exhibitions
in Japan, followers of Rist’s career may wonder why it has taken so long
for a solo exhibition in this country to come to fruition. The wait, she
says, was in part to allow her time to complete her debut feature-length
film, tentatively called Pepperminta, a film whose subject matter
can be found in much of her work."The whole film deals with unnecessary
fears. Some fears are necessary to survival, of course, but many of our
fears, like being laughed at or being rejected, are unnecessary. To do
something big, you have to have ideas, and most of the time, we don’t have
enough time to think of new rituals or what is possible in certain
situations. Watch the way children invade spaces," she says making a
"whooshing" sound and gesturing under the table. "They climb under this
table and invent some sort of new game with it, and that takes time and
that’s the opposite of self-censorship. My protagonist is trying to free
the world – and herself – from unnecessary fears. The film is influenced
by Vera
Chytilova’s film Daisies."
"I’m struggling with the title.
I hadn’t realized how similar it is to my name, and it’s not at all
autobiographical. I’m not in the same place as the heroine of my film.
It’s a kind of escapist Flucht nach vorn—escaping forward—not staying put
and asking what’s wrong, wrong, wrong, but instead using your energy to
make a proposition." But much like her heroine, who she says is
"specialized in trying to expand her movements in daily life," Pipilotti
Rist, through her works in Karakara, seeks to expand people’s range
of movement within space, a range that, for the artist herself, has
increased by half a world.
Pipilotti Rist: Karakara
Hara
Museum, Tokyo
through February 11, 2008
[1]
[2]
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