Pipilotti Rist

The award ceremony

On Monday 7 October, Pipilotti Rist was awarded the Sikkens Prize 2024. The ceremony took place at the Depot of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and Kunsthal Rotterdam. The programme included a film with Rist on colour, the Mondrian Lecture by Dr Alexandra Loske on pioneering women in the history of colour and a dance performance by Scapino Ballet Rotterdam with a choreography created especially for the Sikkens Prize 2024 ceremony by Nanine Linning. After the laudatory speech by Sjarel Ex, Rist was presented with the Sikkens Prize prism by board members Maarten de Vries and Karin Amatmoekrim.

In her acceptance speech, Rist thanked in Dutch everyone who attended the ceremony and contributed to the evening. She concluded her speech by saying: ‘’I hope you have a great time tonight and have inspiring conversations with friends and strangers alike.‘’

After the official part of the presentation, everyone enjoyed Rist’s installation Wasting Life On You at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Depot. Later, an after-party was held upstairs in the depot to bring the award ceremony to a festive close.

Photos of the ceremony were taken by Anne Reitsma.

Use of prize money

The amount of money associated with the Sikkens Prize has been 75.000 euros since 2024, 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. The opening of Rist’s large-format painting (176m²) was on Tuesday 24 September and will be on display until the end of June 2025.

About Pipilotti Rist

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.