Exhibition Press Release

SFMOMA Presents Seventh Art Films Selected By Pipilotti Rist Three Films Screened In Conjunction With Rist Exhibition

Exhibition dates: January 10, 2002 - August 12, 2004

Release date: February 2, 2004

In conjunction with Stir Heart, Rinse Heart: Pipilotti Rist, the first West Coast solo exhibition of pioneering video installation artist Pipilotti Rist, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present three films selected by the artist to be screened as a part of The Seventh Art: New Dimensions in Cinema, the Museum's monthly film series.

"Rist saw a great deal of avant-garde, experimental, and feature films while studying at the School of Design in Basel in the late 1980s," says SFMOMA Curator of Media Arts Benjamin Weil. "We invited her to select films that were of particular importance to her, whose themes and concerns resonate with her installations."

The Chelsea Girls
Thursday, February 12 / 7 p.m. / Phyllis Wattis Theater
Andy Warhol, 1966, 210 min., split-screen projection

Warhol's enduring epic and first commercially successful film showcases his "superstars"—including Ondine, Nico, International Velvet, Gerard Malanga, Ingrid Superstar, Eric Emerson, Mary Woronov (Hanoi Hannah), and others—in all their sordid and spectacular glory. He employs a primarily static camera and gives minimal direction, recording mostly unscripted performances at the Chelsea Hotel, the Factory, and various homes including the Velvet Underground's apartment on West Third Street in the Village. The film is shown two on reels at a time in a side-by-side projection.

Daisies
Thursday, March 11 / 7 p.m. / Phyllis Wattis Theater
Vera Chytilová, 1966, 74 min., Czech with English subtitles

An early influence on the work of Pipilotti Rist, Daisies follows the madcap misadventures of two young women through the nightclubs and restaurants of Prague. Chytilová is widely considered one of the seminal figures of the Czech New Wave, a movement that Daisies epitomizes with its abandonment of traditional narrative form, its surreal imagery, and its indictment of middle-class banality and indulgence.

Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed
Thursday, April 8 / 7 p.m. / Phyllis Wattis Theater
Alexander Kluge, 1968, 103 min., German with English subtitles

One of the premier works of New German Cinema, Artists presents the travails of a young circus director as she struggles to save her company from financial ruin. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 1968 Venice Film Festival, the film is a brilliant absurdist text in which past and present, fact and fiction, combine into one compelling rant against bourgeois mediocrity.

Tickets for each film are $12 general or $8 for SFMOMA members, students with current I.D., and seniors. Admission to the SFMOMA galleries (open until 8:45 p.m. Thursday nights) is included. Advance tickets may be purchased at the SFMOMA admissions desk or online at www.ticketweb.com.

The Seventh Art: New Dimensions in Cinema is generously supported by the Susan Wildberg Morgenstein Fund. Media sponsor: SFSTATION.COM.


Stir Heart, Rinse Heart: Pipilotti Rist

From March 6 through September 12, 2004, SFMOMA will present Stir Heart, Rinse Heart: Pipilotti Rist. Integrating performance, music, sculpture, and video in unprecedented combinations, Rist has established herself as one of the most acclaimed practitioners in her field. She draws on diverse sources—contemporary video art, commercial film, self-appropriation, and recycling of her own imagery—and is fluent in a visual language that exuberantly embraces aspects of mass media and experimental video, playfully confronting the high/low debate. The exhibition will feature a newly commissioned multichannel video installation entitled Stir Heart, Rinse Heart, 2003, and two earlier works from the 1990s: Hallo, Guten Tag (Kussmund) (Hello, Good Day [Kissmouth]), 1995; and Selbstlos im Lavabad (Selfless in the Bath of Lava), 1994. Stir Heart, Rinse Heart: Pipilotti Rist is organized by Benjamin Weil, SFMOMA curator of media arts. Read the full press release for this exhibition.

Media Contacts

  • Neal Morgan, 415.357.4170,
  • Robyn Wise, 415.357.4172,
  • Libby Garrison, 415.357.4177,

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