Sikkens Prize 2024 for colourful, leading artist Pipilotti Rist

On Monday 7 October, Pipilotti Rist will be awarded the prestigious Sikkens Prize 2024 representing a sum of 75.000 euros during a festive meeting in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and Kunsthal Rotterdam. The jury praises the leading Swiss artist for, among other things, the phenomenal way in which she uses colour in her work and how, as a pioneer in video art, she has paved the way for younger generations.

The work of leading, award-winning Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist is as colourful as her personality. Since her graduation project, the video I’m Not the Girl Who Misses Much, she has gained international fame with immersive, surreal, hallucinatory and dreamy video installations. Her artist name refers to Pippi Longstocking. Just like the heroine from Astrid Lindgren’s stories, Rist sees herself as a woman who explores and imagines the world in a playful and colourful way. Rist commented on the use of colour in her work as follows: “Colour is the fundamental element of my artworks. From the vibrant hues to the subtle and ‘broken or dirty’ washes, colour creates mood and atmosphere.”

Her work has been on display at numerous exhibitions worldwide since the mid-1980s. Over the past decade, she has had solo exhibitions in Doha, New York, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Kyoto, Humlebæk, Sidney and Zurich, among others. All exhibitions attracted a record number of visitors to the museums. A major retrospective is planned for the summer of 2025 in Beijing. In the Netherlands, the retrospective exhibition Elixer was held at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in 2009. In 2021, Rist created the beloved artwork Wasting Life on You, a mix of video and environmental art, for the entrance to the Boijmans van Beuningen Depot. Her work can also be seen in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Centraal Museum Utrecht.

The amount of money associated with the Sikkens Prize has been 75.000 euros since this year, an increase of 50.000 euros compared to previous years. Of this, 50.000 euros is intended for personal development and 25.000 euros for the realisation of a special project around colour. Rist spends her prize money, among other things, on Safety Curtain from museum in progress. Every year, this Austrian art organisation asks a renowned artist to transform the curtain of the Vienna State Opera into a work of art. After, among others, Anselm Kiefer, David Hockney, Cy Twombly and Jeff Koons, Rist was asked for the 2024 edition.