HUMLEBAEK.- When Pipilotti Rist’s video installation "Homo Sapiens Sapiens "hits the ceiling in Louisiana’s Hall Gallery from Thursday 7 January 2010, the audience will be elevated into a colour saturated, Paradisiac universe amidst the darkness of winter. The work is viewed lying down with your eyes gazing at a sensual firmament where two naked Eve figures float innocently and lustily around. The work has been created by the popular Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist and can be seen as a striking and poetic conclusion to the group exhibition "THE WORLD IS YOURS", the museum’s current comprehensive presentation of international contemporary art.

To get the full benefit of Homo sapiens sapiens you have to get down on the floor. Visitors are invited to lie and lounge on a low, organic sofa arrangement that Pipilotti Rist has designed especially for viewing this work. Homo sapiens sapiens can 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. Pipilotti Rist is thus challenging the usual way of ‘absorbing’ art, involving both the viewer’s body and the bodies in the work in the same sensing organism.

Pipilotti Rist
For more then twenty years 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. When the work is ‘premiered’ at Louisiana, Pipilotti Rist herself will be present at the museum and will participate in a special event in connection with the opening.

The work will be on show at Louisiana until 25 April 2010.