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

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

Visual artist Pipilotti Rist reveals her story of group sex through deeply sensual and immersive multimedia installation art. The artist conjures up an entire realm of erotic spectacle through video art and object placement. She recently had a multimedia exhibition at Tai Kwun, entitled Behind Your Eyelid. The theme of the exhibition is a story of a trampled whore jumping in hell fire.
Explanation on the website stated the genre and characteristics of her art evidently but remained elusive about the theme. Viewers can only find out the theme by observing artworks on site. The exhibition was meticulously curated. According to the curator, curating the exhibition took two years.

JC Contemporary, the building that the exhibition took place, consists of four floors: G/F to 3/F. Strangely, the order of viewing artworks is upside down. The audience is advised to view artworks from 3/F to 1/F. The video below shows the overall setting of the venue.

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

3/F
Pixel Forest

Pixel Forest, 2016-2022, Hanging LED light installation

Pixel Forest, 2016-2022, Hanging LED light installation

Pixel Forest, 2016-2022, Hanging LED light installation

In a dark and spacious hall, Hundreds of strings attached with glass lights resemble vulvae hang on the ceiling of the room. Vulva lights are attached evenly from top to bottom on a string. A moderate amount of distance between hanged strings gives the audience enough space to wander inside the installation. Rainbow colors sweep glass vulva lights like ocean waves. Examined closely, some vulva lights have various lengths of icicles attached to them. Eerie yet soothing music plays in the background. Sometimes, the witchy voice of the artist echoes: “you see me, I see you, I want to see how you see.”
The artwork represents a screen of pixels on porno sites. The artwork induces the audience to imagine the artist lost in indulging in decadent videos, images, and texts that taint her mind. When entering a forest, explorers might get lost and can’t guarantee that they can find a way out. Rist’s story of prostitution unfolds from the dirty habit of the artist before she was involved in prostitution.

Sip My Ocean

Sip My Ocean, 1996, Two-channel video projection

A symmetrical video plays on two-channel screens in a similar setting as the previous room. While watching the video, the audience can either sit on a cushion or stand outside of the rug area. According to the exhibition pamphlet, the video is shot under the Red Sea. Video are shot at an intentional angle that the whole setting is hard to see. A seductive ballad plays along the video. The song is “Wicked Games” by Chris Issac. The background music is a reinterpretation of the original song.
The visual quality of video is not meeting expectation of the ticket price. The quality of the composition is disappointing. It is sentimental and lacks any narrative or purpose. The quality of music surpasses that of video. The mellifluous melody of the acoustic guitar in the reinterpretation is more sentimental than that of the original version. The melody is evocative of the push and pulls of the flowing Red Sea wave. The lyrics of the song are the most powerful component of the artwork. The lyrics are especially pronounced, so the audience can clearly understand their meaning. Lyrics represent the artist’s perspective on group sex and prostitution. She attempts to establish an emotional connection with the audience by addressing her thoughts through the lyrics.

2/F

Installations of 2/F are slightly misleading and pinpointing artworks on display was a bit challenging. The site-specific installation art easily deceives the audience into thinking that it is a trendy library. Technically, the whole 2/F is an installation art itself, but there are two specific parts that require the attention of the audience.

Soul Lights

Soul Lights, 2022, Installation with colored windows

Soul Lights, 2022, Installation with colored windows

Soul Lights, 2022, Installation with colored windows

The first is Soul Lights. The installation features colored filters attached on windows of 2/F. Refined shades of red, magenta, yellow, green, and blue tinted ample sunlight coming through the glass. Colored glass filters in Soul Lights indicate that the artist was mind-controlled. When looking outside through a glass window without any colored filters, the outside world is normal. However, when looking outside through a glass window with a yellow-colored filter, the outside world looks saturated with yellow. Mind-controlled person views the world through a colored filter, a distorted perception of reality.

 

Selfless in Bath of Lava

Selfless in Bath of Lava, 1994, Audio video installation

The second is Selfless in Bath of Lava. The size of the artwork is so small that finding the artwork would have been impossible without the help of a guard on 2/F. The artwork is installed in a tiny hole in the rug on the floor. In a tiny LCD monitor as small as a thumb, the naked artist is engulfed by burning lava and raises both of her hands to reach for salvation from above. She screams out loud: “I’m a worm and you are a flower, so please help me.” The artist scaled the artwork down, so not all of the audience would be able to see her being tortured in burning lava. The video represents the artist’s state of mind while engaging in prostitution. 

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