PIPILOTTI RIST - Homo sapiens sapiens

Museum guests were kindly asked to take off their shoes, lie down and relax. For the video installation Homo sapiens sapiens was meant to be enjoyed lying down on the low, organic sofa arrangement that Pipilotti Rist has designed especially for the viewing of her work. Homo sapiens sapiens could therefore quite literally be seen as a mythological tale – along the lines of medieval frescoes and the soaring vaults of the Baroque churches – unfolding in technicolor, about present-day humanity.

Thus Pipilotti Rist is intent on challenging the usual way of ‘absorbing’ art, involving both the viewer’s body and the bodies in the work in the same sensing organism. For more then twenty years Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist (b. 1962) has played a striking role in international contemporary art. Her works revolve around themes like gender and the feminine and she is represented by several works in the Louisiana Collection, including the video installation Sip My Ocean.

Homo sapiens sapiens was shown for the first time in the loft of the San Stae church in connection with the Venice Biennial in 2005. However, apparently its imagery was not considered quite suitable, for the church authorities chose to close it down, allegedly because of technical problems. 

At Louisiana the work could be seen as a striking and poetic conclusion to the group exhibition THE WORLD IS YOURS, the museum’s comprehensive 2009 presentation of international contemporary art.