Apricots along the street

I shall make a classical artist’s book, and it will fulfill no expectations, except that this volume will become a book I would love to get from my twin sister, who only exists in my dreams. The book will consist of photographs and video stills, poems, facsimiles of drawings and other traces with explanations–an encyclopedia of afternoons without any alphabetical order. The book will praise life, it will be charming and compassionate, with numerous details to get lost in, and survival strategies to discover. A pocket book that one wants to look at again and again, the book will be created on the carpet of my apartment on the 15th floor and in designer Thomas Rhyner’s generous house. His house leaks when it rains and I am shortsighted and have to go closer to see. The eye is a blood-driven camera. With such poetic and enigmatic words internationally acclaimed artist Pipilotti Rist describes her new book. Rist’s imagery oscillates between video clips and the melancholic desire to daydream (im-)possible worlds. Her installations and videos attract a large public that might never have visited a museum before. Pipilotti Rist indeed has a following that reaches far beyond the world of contemporary art.
Rist’s work gives you the uncanny feeling of floating through someone else’s consciousness, of knowing their inner thoughts and seeing the everyday world through their eyes. She takes you out of yourself, places you in her body and the bodies of others, then plops you back into your own skin again…She embraces her femininity; exudes power, control, and sex; avoids clichés and uses them at the same time. Her comedic touch evinces an enormous freedom and imagination. Jerry Saltz, Village Voice