Pipilotti Rist's First Solo Exhibition and First Video

© 2008 Pipilotti Rist, courtesy the artist, Luhring Augustine, and Hauser & Wirth

Pipilotti Rist, still from "Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters)" (2008)

Swiss artist, Pipilotti Rist, whose real name is Elizabeth Charlotte, had her first solo exhibition in 1984, when she transformed Vienna’s Galerie Prottore/Stauraum into a bank branch. But, it was her first video, I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much (1986), that really helped jump start her career. In the video she repeatedly sings an adaptation of a lyric from the Beattles song Happiness is a Warm Gun, while romping around in a black dress with her breasts exposed. She has continued to incorporate the female protagonist, nudity, and music throughout her career.

Recent exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, among others. Her work is in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.