There are three works by Rist, an outdoor installation and two large scale videos. Mercy Garden runs along two perpendicular walls in a huge dark room. The floor is covered in sheep skins and the video is incredibly tactile and sensual, you can feel everything going on on screen. We watched the video through more than once and could hardly tear ourselves away.
Sleeping Pollen was a more complicated installation, consisting of mirrored globes or pods which slowly revolve. Some were passive, but others had projectors inside them. As the pods move around the videos slowly travel across the walls and become distorted. The videos were of plant life and it was like being underwater. Everyone in the space moved slowly, but kept moving, it was a fluid and calming room, truly immersive.
Having seen the Turner Prize show this year the Pipilotti Rist show brought back my faith in video art. The Turner Prize works were all incredibly sterile and intellectual, it was so good to see videos which are absorbing, transcendental and which really grab and hold you.
There was also an installation by Rist outside the gallery, Hiplights were pants hung over lights whimsically strung like bunting in the courtyard.
In addition to Rist's work there were two other, smaller shows. John Chamberlain with mangled Gondolas and great poems and Richard Tuttle with some small sculptural sketches hung on the wall. The Richard Tuttle works were the kind which just inspire you to make.
Overall Hauser and Wirth Somerset is a great place, it's in a beautiful setting and has a garden. Interior is lovely too very tastefully and perfectly renovated and there's a shop and bistro. It sparked a few conversations around accessibility (in that the visitors all looked like art students or part of the wealthy Somerset set) and comparisons with Yorkshire Sculpture Park which is much more accessible and pulls in a huge, diverse crowd. YSP is much more established though and is a public space, rather than a private gallery. In all H&W Somerset felt very generous, it was a great day out & we'll certainly be regulars. Perhaps more people just need to know about it?
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