Pipilotti Rist

The Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT recognizes innovative talents and offers the recipient a cash prize and a campus residency.

The Award

Established in 1974 by Margaret McDermott (1912–2018), the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT is bestowed upon individuals whose artistic trajectory and body of work have achieved the highest distinction in their field and indicate they will remain leaders for years to come. The McDermott Award reflects MIT’s commitment to risk-taking, problem solving, and connecting creative minds across disciplines.

The Selection Process

The Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT may be given to an artist working in any field or cross-disciplinary activity, including architecture, creative writing, dance, design, filmmaking, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts. Invited international leaders in arts and culture submit prospective award recipients for review by an award selection committee composed of members of the MIT community appointed by the MIT Vice Provost for the Arts.

Eugene McDermott

The Award honors Eugene McDermott (1899–1973), co-founder of Texas Instruments and long-time friend and benefactor of MIT. The Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT was created by Eugene’s wife, Margaret (1912–2018) in 1974 and is presented by the Council for the Arts at MIT.

A geophysicist, Eugene McDermott was a member of the MIT Corporation from 1960 to 1973. The scholarship funds he established at MIT reflect his commitment to education and the public art he donated a conviction, shared with his wife Margaret, that the physical environment of a campus has great influence upon the character of an institution. They commissioned Eugene’s Stevens Tech classmate Alexander Calder to create The Great Sail, which was dedicated in 1966 on McDermott Court, facing the Green Building. In 1976, the McDermott family and other friends of MIT made a gift of Three Piece Reclining Figure, Draped by Henry Moore, which graces Killian Court.

A distinctive feature of the Award is a short residency at MIT, which includes a public presentation of the artist’s work, as well as substantial interaction with students and faculty. The goal of the residency is to provide the recipient with unparalleled access to the creative energy and cutting-edge research at the Institute and to develop mutually enlightening relationships in the MIT community.

Pipilotti Rist will present a Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT keynote lecture on April 8, 2027. Further information coming soon.

Pipilotti Rist, a pioneer of spatial video art, was born 1962 in Grabs in the Swiss Rhine Valley on the Austrian Border and has been a central figure within the international art scene since the mid-1980s.

Astounding the art world with the energetic exorcistic statement of her now famous single channel videos, such as I’m Not The Girl Who Misses Much (1986) and Pickelporno (1992), Rist’s artistic work has co-developed with technical advancements and in playful exploration of its new possibilities to propose footage resembling a collective brain. Through large video projections and digital manipulation, she has developed immersive installations that draw life from slow caressing showers of vivid color tones, like her works Sip My Ocean (1996) or Worry Will Vanish (2014).

For Rist, showing vulnerability is a sign of strength on which she draws for inspiration. With her curious and lavish recordings of nature (to which humans belong as an animal), and her investigative editing, Rist seeks to justify the privileged position we are born with, simply by being human. Her installations and exhibition concepts are expansive, finding within the mind, senses and body the possibility for endless discovery and poetical invention. Pixel Forest (2016), made from 3,000 thousand LEDs hung on strings, resembles a movie screen that has exploded into the room, allowing viewers an immersive walk through 3-dimensional video. As she herself puts it, “beside the energy-intensive exploration of the geographical world, pictures, films and sounds have been and are the spaces into which we can escape… The projector is the flamethrower, the space is the vortex and you are the pearl within.”

Since 1984, Rist has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and video screenings worldwide. Her recent solo exhibitions include Electric Idyll at the Fire Station, Doha, Qatar (2024); Prickling Goosebumps & A Humming Horizon at Hauser & Wirth, New York, and Luhring Augustine, Chelsea (2023–24); Behind Your Eyelid at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022); Big Heartedness, Be My Neighbor at The Geffen Contemporary, MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2021–22); Your Eye Is My Island at MoMAK, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, and Art Tower Mito, Mito, Japan (2021); Åbn min Lysning (Open my Glade) at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2019); Sip My Ocean at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (2017–18); Pixel Forest at New Museum, New York (2016–17); and Your Saliva is My Diving Suit of the Ocean of Pain at Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland (2016).

Read more about the artist at Hauser & Wirth and Luhring Augustine, NY