Drawing on the session, Experien?al spaces on the 15th of October, we
will analyse the exhibi?on by Swiss ar?st PipiloE Rist, Eyeball Massage,
at the Hayward Gallery using the text O’Doherty, B (1999) Inside the
White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space [1976] Berkeley University
of California Press.
“When I close my eyes, my imagina?on roams free. In the same
way I want to create spaces for video art that rethink the very
nature of the medium itself. I want to discover new ways of
configuring the world, both the world outside and the world
within.”
PipiloE Rist
The Eyeball Massage exhibi?on brings together over 30 works from the
mid 1980s to the present day, including a special installa?on created
especially for the Hayward Gallery.
Some of her works are immense scale others are very small and focused.
Projec?ons occupy the floor, ceiling and walls while some even float in
space.
Videos are hidden within objects: there are works within works and mo?fs
that migrate from one work to another.
Most of her work occupy’s the Hayward’s main gallery but some of her
work has escaped into other places such outdoors.
PipiloE Rist considers her video works as extensions of her own body
as well as her mind.
“ I tend to feel the video pieces from inside myself.”
She uses the transforma?ve power of colour and space to enchant
and seduce the viewer and create this visual environment.
Feminism & the Female Nude
Much of the exhibi?on had a very heavy focus on the human body, namely the female form and there is an apparent fixa?on on sexuality.
Her art focuses on bodily pleasures and the exhibi?on itself is very sensual, arousing both visual and auditory systems.
There is also a sense of freedom and explora?on to the exhibi?on –both through the content of her work and the space she has created.
These no?ons of freedom and self-‐expression paired with her focus on women, the female body and sexuality should be contemplated with regards to the context of her work and her life so far.
Born in 1962, Rist grew in up in an era that had just experienced waves of feminist movements with a consequen?al craving the female ar?st to gain exposure and recogni?on within society.
Art historian and writer of Why Have their Been No Great Women
Ar3sts?, Lina Nochlin, inves?gated (insert more) How does rist’s work relate to this? Answer her inves?ga?ons? Differ
from mens work?
However, Rist explains the female nude represents humankind as a whole.
In opposi?on to the sexualiza?on of the nude body in western society, Rist views nudity as something innocent and believes to be at ease with your body is to be at ease with your whole self.
Works exploring inside of the body? Diges?ng impressions.massachusels chandelier?
Figure 2: PipiloE Rist, Massachusels Chandelier , 2010. Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery, London [2011].
Breaking social taboos
Breaking cultural and social taboos: PipiloE Rist goes beyond
breaking the usual format of display and incorporates the same ideal in
the content of her work.
She introduces new and warmer ways of displaying video, and also provokes reac?ons by displaying explicit scenes of nudity and sexual
intercourse that go against every aspect of the classical exhibi?on.
Technology
Rist also explores socie?es rela?onship with technology and machinery through her work.
Rist u?lizes lo tech machinery to create new and unique pieces that
are omen the result of overlapping images and video or manipula?ng
footage in a untradi?onal and exci?ng way.
She transform the cold and hard nature of machinery by crea?ng
mul?sensory experience pieces that immerse the audience into a
dream like state.
The Gallery
Mainly through form and presenta?on, Rist’s work challenges the
poli?cs of the gallery.
Iden?fying the way in which gallery visitors usually behave, Rist delieberatley disrupts these ‘viewing rituals’ by crea?ng pieces of
work that can only be viewed by laying down or kneeling.
Inside the White Cube
O’Doherty argues that the alempted neutrality of modern museums
and galleries is not neutral at all but in fact stands for a community with
common ideas and assump?ons towards art.
With no context to place the artwork in, the white wall allows
audience assump?ons to be placed on an ar?st’s work as opposed for
the ar?st’s inten?ons to be placed on the audience
Rist, rebels against the white wall in her exhibi?on at the Hayward Gallery, Eyeball Massage, by u?lizing the space in a site specific
experien?al context that frees her work from the constraints of the
gallery and challenges audiences percep?on of art.
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The Museum
“Art and ar?fact, style and period, high and low, dominant and marginal-‐ these are the boundaries museums rely on to sustain ‘socie?es most revered beliefs and values” (Corrin, L. 2004 p. 381).
The museum space relies on socie?es assump?ons while simultaneously reinforcing them through the presenta?on of the artwork and the e?quele required of the museum.
However, Rist defies and denounces the gallery space by transforming it into an interac?ve and communal area that invites the audience to directly interact with her work.
Placement
O’ Doherty discusses that, tradi?onally art is hung at the middle level
of the white wall separated from the room by a frame so it is in best view
for it’s audience.
Where the artwork is hung denotes its value and pres?ge.
Rist’s work defies this by crea?ng moving image pieces and projec?ng
them into and onto spaces that force the audience to bend to her work
as opposed to the modernist tradi?on of taking work out of context and
placing it into an easily accessible space for the audience, otherwise
known as the white cube.
“If the love of art is the clear mark of the chosen, separa?ng, by an
invisible and insuperable barrier, those who are touched by it from those
who have not received its grace, it is understandable that in the ?niest
details of their morphology and their organiza?on, museums betray their
true func?on, which is to reinforce for some the feeling of belonging and
for others the feeling of exclusion.”
Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel,
The Love of Art: European Art Museums and Their Public
If a museums purpose is to either reinforce feelings of belonging or
exclusion, it is clear Eyeball Massage at the Hayward Gallery is meant to
create a sense of community that allows the audience to experience
Rist’s work in a crea?ve and collabora?ve way.
Rist breaks the social e?quele of the gallery and allows the audience to relax and enjoy her work through the way in which she forces them to
experience it.
Figure 1: PipiloE Rist, A Peak Into the West A Look Into the East (E-‐W), 1992. Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery, London (2011).
“The coupling of these dimensions defines the four ‘realms’ of an
experience-‐ entertainment, educa?on, escape, and esthe?cism that
omen comingles to form uniquely personal encounters.” (New Forms of
Consump?on p 31)
Rist u?lizes the gallery space in order to create a unique and personal experience for her audience by manipula?ng:
Sound Scale Projec?ons Untradi?onal spaces (floor, ceiling, etc.)
Figure 2: PipiloE Rist, Selfless in The Bath of Lava, 1994. Eyeball Massage, Hayward Gallery, London (2011).
Rist creates environments that influence the way in which her work is
viewed.
The way in which her work is viewed some?mes becomes more
important than the work itself.
Forces audience to interact with her work as opposed to the tradi?onal clinical and controlled “do not touch” museum environment.
Allows audience to play and communicate with each other in a
communal art experience.