Pipilotti Rist, Parasimpatico
Cinema Manzoni, Milan (Italy). 09.11 - 18.12.2011
Motive Gallery, Amsterdam (Netherlands). 12.03 - 29.04.2011
E-Flux Press release
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi is proud to present Parasimpatico, the first major solo
show in an Italian institution by Pipilotti Rist. The setting for the Swiss artist's
new project is the former Cinema Manzoni, which for over fifty years was one of the
most important movie theaters in Milan, and has been closed to the public since 2006.
Conceived for the evocative spaces of the former Cinema Manzoni, Parasimpatico combines
older works with newly re-mixed pieces conceived for this show, which transports
us into a world of floating visions, vibrant, psychedelic colors, hypnotic soundtracks,
sensuality and ethereality.
Like a modern-day Pippi Longstocking, the heroine of
children's literature who inspired her nickname, Pipilotti Rist uses images to project
yearnings and emotions, generating a new form of organic life that viewers can perceive
with their bodies as well as their eyes. Often hidden in unexpected places—toilets,
liquor bottles, seashells and handbags—or projected onto evocative surfaces—church
ceilings or giant screens—her installations are explorations of the senses, all-enveloping
experiences where any physical and psychological distance from the viewer is abolished.
The
gateway into Pipilotti Rist's work is our emotional side, the part that reacts involuntarily
to external stimuli. This observation inspired the title for her exhibition with
the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Parasimpatico: with her usual touch of humor, Pipilotti
Rist is referring to the division of the nervous system that governs the body's involuntary
functions, such as digestion, relaxation, rest and energy storage. Her project transforms
the theater into a huge, living creature, mingling cinema and television, hallucinations
and high-definition images, dreams and reality: the sumptuously decorated spaces
of the Manzoni—from the lobby to the grand staircase, and from the auditorium to
the bar—are wrapped in a new skin of images, an enveloping carousel of sound, light
and color that restores a joyous magic to what was once Milan's most prestigious
movie theater, in a final flutter of life before its definitive transformation.
With
Parasimpatico, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi continues its nomadic exploration
of Milan, rediscovering forgotten places and hidden treasures in the heart of the
city and bringing them back to life through contemporary art. After major solo shows
by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Darren Almond, Maurizio Cattelan, John Bock,
Urs Fischer, Anri Sala, Paola Pivi, Martin Creed, Pawel Althamer, Peter Fischli and
David Weiss, Tino Sehgal, Tacita Dean, and Paul McCarthy, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi
is now proud to present this new large-scale project by Pipilotti Rist—her first
solo show with an Italian institution—as part of the calendar of events organized
throughout 2011 to celebrate the centennial of Trussardi Group.
