Rist will present her new video installation work revolving around the themes of "fluids inside the body" and "birth," perceiving the human body as a container for liquids/juices such as blood, sweat and tears. Her work "The Cake Is In Flames" will express the energy and power that are engendered and nurtured from there. An original birthday song will also be written and presented especially on this occasion.

Pipilotti Rist was born in 1962 in Rheintal, Switzerland. Originally based in Zurich, she moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 2002, and taught at UCLA for a year. At the 1997 Venice Biennale, she received The Premio 2000 Award with her video work "Ever is Over All," in which a pretty woman in a baby blue dress walks down a city street, laughing as she smashes car windows with an iron bar with a flower on top that she holds in her hand. This compelling visual work catapulted her fame in the international art scene as a video artist. She has participated in many international exhibitions such as the 1997 Kwangju Biennale, Biennale de Lyon, and Istanbul Biennale. Her solo exhibition at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1999 was well received, while the Japanese audience has been introduced to her works through exhibitions such as "Vision of the Body: Fashion or Invisible Corset" (1999, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), the Yokohama Triennale (2001), and at the CCA Kitakyushu (2000-2001).

After studying graphic design in Vienna, Rist returned to Switzerland and studied video and animation. After working at a video production company, she began creating her own artistic works incorporating video, sound, figurative arts and poetry.

Her works, which are influenced by pop culture, MTV and experimental films, fuse the boundaries between music and visual imagery. The narrative woven from imaginary time and space are effectively incorporated in her vivid and rhythmic installation works.

Rist says: "Art's task is to contribute to evolution, to encourage the mind, to guarantee a detached view of social changes, to conjure up positive energies, to create sensuousness, to reconcile reason and instinct, to research possibilities, to destroy cliches and prejudices." Rist is an artist who never forgets to situate herself in a neutral position and directs her keen attention to the things around her. She departs from a casual, ordinary viewpoint but challenges to express herself in a flexible, liberated and positive way.

The title "The Cake Is In Flames" embraces Rist's message of inviting viewers to celebrate their birthdays as a passing point in life, as they overcome the happiness and sorrow they experience along the way.

We hope visitors will come and enjoy the visual and sound space Rist will create inside the Shiseido Gallery.