Pipilotti Rist: I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much

Hawks Pavilion
Media Gallery H6

Pipilotti Rist’s lush videos enlist music, technology, and performance to blur the boundaries between the fantastical and the everyday. Subverting the music video genre, her work from the 1980s explores representations of the female voice and body in popular culture. I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much has the DIY aesthetic of Rist’s early work. In this video, she pushes pop music’s use of lyrical and sonic repetition and depictions of women to absurd lengths. Rist intermittently slowed down and sped up footage of her chanting the titular phrase (a line adapted from The Beatles’ 1968 song, “Happiness is a Warm Gun”) while making increasingly frantic movements. Editing effects distort the video, resulting in an almost painterly procession of images.

Pictured: Pipilotti Rist (Swiss, b. 1962), I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much, 1986, color video, 7 min. 47 sec. © Pipilotti Rist, Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, and Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.