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For immediate release Public Art Fund presents… Swiss Video Artist Pipilotti Rist's First Public Project in New York... Open My Glade Rist features her dreamlike videos on the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic
Video Screen in the heart of Times Square
On view April 6 through May 20, 2000 New York, NY - For the center of media-frenzied Times Square, Pipilotti Rist has created a series of videos for the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic that overlooks the traffic jams, flashing lights, high-tech screens, and billboards of this famous New York crossroads. Visitors to Times Square will see one-minute segments that comprise Rist's new artwork Open My Glade, as part of NBC and Panasonic's programming at a quarter past the hour, every hour from 9:15 in the morning through 12:15 at night. Times Square's rhythm of uncoordinated flashing, grabbing attention from one advertisement to the next, one news broadcast to another, neutralizes all this visual input into a memory of electronic overload. Rist's series of videos, set against this backdrop are subjectively slowed down, literally in slow motion, relaying poetic, philosophical and political statements through her idiosyncratic super close-ups, flying camera work and intense colors. Pipilotti Rist is internationally known for her rich vocabulary of sensual images, often focusing on the body, that articulates an open-ended vision of truth and identity. She is engaged in a deep dialogue with disrupted harmony, exposing the darker underbelly of her utopias and manipulating video to reveal her agenda. With her project for the Public Art Fund, Rist continues this direction in her work, realizing snapshots that glorify the ordinary, the hidden, the longed for, the ugly and the awkward as expressions of urgency and desire. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, Open My Glade presents a series of videos created especially for the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic screen. Pipilotti Rist understands Times Square as an overwhelming space full of "electric blossoms and electronic twinkle" that hit visitors like "a slap across the face." Rist uses the energy of this "slap" to fuel her video segments and once an hour for 60 seconds, 16 times each day her videos will be broadcast to the public. Among them are ten different sequences of a woman flattening her face against the screen as if she wants to break out of the Astrovision board and come down into Times Square. As emotion, beauty, laughter, and life experience come through the square of the television, computer, or movie screen with increasing frequency in contemporary life, this woman tries to break through this 2-dimensional glass screen into 3-dimensional space. The six additional sequences feature singular moments that are at once familiar and strange such as rays of sun shining through the flesh of an ear making it appear red and orange, a woman bicycling while the camera sweeps from her bicycle's tires to far above her head, and a tall, generic residential building with a lone woman standing looking out her window as the camera looks back at her from an impossible height overlayed with spring flowers. These diverse sequences come together to create Pipilotti Rist's Open My Glade-a collection of filtered poetic images that make Times Square a "glade" within the "forest" of Manhattan, and Rist's artwork a "glade" within Times Square. For another "Glade" on the Internet, visit www.squaretimes.net
History of Public Art Fund in Times Square and Advertising Media Rist's new video commission for the NBC Astrovision by Panasonic screen also utilizes a traditional vehicle for advertisement as a site for contemporary art, not only bringing her work to a wider public, but also providing an unexpected and thought-provoking break in the stream of commercialization of the urban landscape. About Pipilotti Rist About the Public Art Fund The Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous gifts from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Pipilotti Rist's Open My Glade, seen on the Astrovision by Panasonic
and NBC, is made possible by Panasonic. With additional major support
from the Third Millennium Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and
the Silverweed Foundation. # # # Contact:
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