Educational Media Reviews Online

Inviting spaces, vibrant colors, and community interaction are at the heart of Pipilotti Rist’s art installation Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), which opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in late 2008. Rist, a native of Switzerland, is a visual and performance artist who has exhibited widely throughout Europe and North America. The Color of Your Socks chronicles the creation of Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters), taking the viewer on a journey that includes preparatory work and small-scale model building, a visit from the Museum of Modern Art’s curator to assess progress, building the installation, and the installation’s opening. Along the way we also see Rist’s work on other projects she was creating during this same time – a monument to Emilie Kempin-Spyri at the University of Zurich, a new installation at Kunsthaus Zurich, the feature film project Pepperminta, and an installation in London. It is a rare opportunity to document an artist’s creative process from the inception of an idea until it is fully realized. Unfortunately, Hegglin does not present what many might view as an essential part of the creative process – namely, the initial germination of the idea from which Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) sprang forth. Still, we are shown a substantial portion of Rist’s process and witness the many collaborations needed to make such a large-scale installation possible.

One of the major failings of this film is the assumption that all viewers will already know who Rist is and the kind of work she creates. Certainly many viewers will already be fans; yet, for those viewers unfamiliar with Rist and her art, Hegglin does a severe disservice by not providing even the slightest of contextual frames. Hegglin could have easily remedied this and provided the missing contextualization had he chosen to incorporate either voiceover narration or textual narration beyond subtitles. Similarly, the film feels as though we are joining an event mid-stream; a stronger narrative arc could have been achieved had Hegglin documented Rist’s creative process from an even earlier point. Despite these shortcomings, the film does provide an insider’s look at the world of a contemporary artist.

In Swiss German, German, and English, with subtitles in English or French.

Recommended with reservations.