Tai Kwun: Pipilotti Rist – Behind Your Eyelid, Part 2

Topics Covered in Part 1

• 3/F: Pixel Forest, Sip My Ocean
• 2/F: Soul Lights, Selfless in Bath of Lava

Topics Covered in Part 2

• 1/F: The Apartment, Big Skin

1/F

The Apartment

Behind Your Eyelid – Pipilotti Rist: Setting of the exhibition venue

Mercy Garden Retour, 2014, Audio video installation, Sound: Heinz Rohrer - one of three videos playing on the installed screen

Similar to installations on 3/F, The Apartment takes place in a spacious hall where the sunlight is completely blocked. “Reverse Eyelid”, a wall paper of distorted images, surrounds the wall like a membrane. Consisting of 14 distinctive artworks, the Apartment contains the core of the group sex narrative. Through object placement, Pipilotti Rist conjures up an entire realm of imagination behind the eyelid of the audience. The following paragraphs discusses the three most sensual, provocative and controversial works in the Apartment.

Group Sex

Enlighten My Space

Enlighten My Space, 2008, Video installation

Enlighten My Space, 2008, Video installation

In the middle of a long shelf, an opened scientific magazine in German with objects on, is brightly lit up to gather the attention of the audience. Pages of the magazine contain one of the most disturbing stories of group sex. The installation reveals she had abortions for two times. An organ-shaped thin and transparent plastic floating above indicates the size of the fetus when she had the abortion surgery. the most horrifying part of the story is that the artist agreed to get pregnant and was passionate about committing such horrible deeds to herself. The more she was destroyed, the higher she was elevated financially and socially by her sponsors.

Sentimental Sideboard

Sentimental Sideboard, 2021, Video installation

Sentimental Sideboard, 2021, Video installation

The strange red lighting of the sideboard incites the curiosity of the audience. Each section portrays the sex the artist had with her partners through assorted red plastic objects. One of the most provocative stories is that she had sex with a female partner while other partners enjoyed the erotic view. Contrasting to the cheap and artificial objects, a Scholarly Rock sits in the middle, as a representation of the body of the artist. She projected moving images on the rock, so the audience would perceive it as a focal point of the artwork. The contrast in material between plastic objects and the rock indicates how her partners treated her body when having intercourse. Yet, the color of the lighting shows both sides were passionate about having sex.

Enlightened Hips

Enlightened Hips, 2011, Video installation

The most eye-catching installation in The Apartment, Enlightened Hips consists of two parts. The first part is a beautiful rock with a video projection in the center and multiple pieces of furniture surrounding it. A circle-shaped reddish-purple rug lies under the installation. The choice of furniture reflects the refined taste of the artist. Similar to the Scholar’s Rock in Sentimental Sideboard, the rock represents the physical body of the artist. Video projected on the rock is the mental image that governs the body of the artist. She welcomes the audience to become a part of the experience by letting them sit on sofas or a chair to watch the projected video dance on the surface of the rock. The artist delivers the fantasy of gazing body and mind of the artist while she had sex with her partners.

Enlightened Hips, 2011, Video installation

The second part is detached away from the first part. Yet, it is intended to be viewed together with the first part. An amputated mannequin shows the artist’s state of mind during sex. The two installations conjure up the mental image of the artist having sex with her partners. Her partners take turns to be physically intimate with her, while the rest of the partners watch the erotic spectacle of her and her partners moving, and reaching “enlightenment”, the highest state of physical pleasure. Meanwhile, her body, as beautiful as a masterpiece, is immobile like a doll. Ration and the ability to imagine are absent. Her body is overwhelmed and captivated by instinct and sensational pleasure. Her movement is entirely determined by her partners.

Big Skin

Big Skin, 2022, Audio video installation

Big Skin, 2022, Audio video installation

Specially commissioned by Tai Kwun, the installation is revealed to the audience for the first time. In a dark and spacious hall, glossy plastic panels with wavy surfaces and a chandelier made out of underwear float in the air. Colorful videos shot in nature are precisely projected onto each panel. Panels look studded with gleaming diamonds, due to their glossy surface. Combined with dreamy instrumental, the entire hall is ambient with a meditative and ethereal atmosphere.

Big Skin, 2022, Audio video installation

Each panel resembling the surface of the water is another representation of the body of the artist. The panels show the physical and mental aspects of the human body. Plain panels represent the physical body and projected video represents the mental image that sculpted the physical body of the artist. As the artist wander around the “pixel forest” of internet sites, those images were planted in her brain.
Floating panels of the Big Skin, the amputated mannequin, and the rock in the center of Enlightened Hips, and Scholar’s Rock of Sentimental Sideboard share the same concept: the body of the artist during sex. These three representations have a distinctive trait in common: lack of action. Similar to the rest of the immobile medium, the motionless panels hang in the air like statues. Speculating from the hanging height of the panels, the sex partners of the artist caressed her carefully.

Tai Kwun: Pipilotti Rist – Behind Your Eyelid, Part 1

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