Public Art Fund: Pipilotti Rist

Press Release
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location
Bibliography

Pippilotti Rist, "Open My Glade"

April 6 - May 20, 2000

One-minute video segments
every hour at 15 past the hour
from 9:15 am to 12:15 am
on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic
video screen in Times Square

Pipilotti Rist, "Open My Glade" Photo: Dennis Cowley

For the center of media-frenzied Times Square, Pipilotti Rist created a series of videos for the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic board that overlooked the infamous traffic jams, high-tech screens, and billboards. Open My Glade, Rist's first public art project in New York, was composed of 16 one-minute video segments interspersed with NBC and Panasonic programming at a quarter past the hour, every hour from 9:15 am to 12:15 am. Rist's collection of videos, set against Times Square's backdrop of uncoordinated blinking lights and flashing messages, appeared in slow motion. These videos relayed poetic, philosophical, and political statements through close-ups, flying camera work, and intense colors.

Pipilotti Rist's project continued the Public Art Fund's commitment to media-based artworks. Messages to the Public, a program that began in 1980 and ran for nine years, featured a series of artists' projects created for the Spectacolor board at Times Square. Messages to the Public encouraged artists to take advantage of this large LED screen, and artists such as Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, and David Hammons created their first public LED artworks through this program.

Artist Bio
Born in Switzerland in 1962, Pipilotti Rist studied Graphic Design and Photography at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, then Video at the School for Design in Basel. Rist's vocabulary of sensual images and sound, focusing heavily on her own body, articulates an open-ended vision of truth and identity. Her work is engaged in a dialogue with disrupted harmony, exposing the darker underbelly of her utopias and manipulating video to reveal her agenda. After winning the Premio 2000 Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1997, Rist has had solo shows at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal and the Luhring Augustine Gallery in New York City. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Sponsorship
Open My Glade was made possible by Panasonic, with additional major support from the Third Millennium Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and The Silverweed Foundation.

Location
Open My Glade appeared on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic board in Times Square (42nd Street and Broadway).
To view additional information and graphics from this project, please visit http://www.squaretimes.net.