September 14, 2017
Pipilotti Rist. Image courtesy of Rolls-Royce
British automaker Rolls-Royce is expanding the experience of Fondation Beyeler’s gala to a broader audience through its sponsorship of the Swiss museum.
The Summer Night’s Gala always asks a contemporary artist to turn the soiree into a work of art in itself. This year’s collaborator, Pipilotti Rist, developed an installation as part of the Rolls-Royce Art Programme that will be showcased not only at the event, but to the public following the gala evening.
Public display
Ms. Rist’s “Tender Roundelay” consists of 23 kaleidoscopic projections that will be shown on 46 tables. Guests will be enveloped by a four-hour-long video installation that will change moods as party goers are experiencing new courses or mingling away from their tables.
“My work ‘Tender Roundelay’ is a research project and experiment about how, and if, the moving electronic image can also unite people when often it rather separates us or forces a group to look in only one direction,” Ms. Rist said in a statement. “This question has interested me for a long time, while the sun is our biggest projector and our eyes are blood driven cameras.”
For the first time, the gala art piece will be accessible to the public, taking the experience beyond the gala’s invited guests. On Sept. 17, the work will be shown at Fondation Beyeler’s Riehen museum near Basel, Switzerland.
Fondation Beyeler. Image credit: Fondation Beyeler
Outside of the museum, Rolls-Royce will also stage the installation, curated by Fondation Beyeler director Sam Keller, at its headquarters in Goodwood, West Sussex at a future date.
“From the inception of the Rolls-Royce Art Programme we have sought to add to the fabric of the contemporary art world through a series of collaborations with some of the world’s most revered artists,” said Torsten Müller-Ötvös, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, in a statement.
“This latest partnership with Fondation Beyeler and Pipilotti Rist sees Rolls-Royce support one of the most significant occasions on the international art calendar, whilst opening the work to a public audience.”
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars recently expanded the visibility of its Art Programme by commissioning a public art display during Art Basel Miami Beach in December.
The site-specific art display was placed at the Jewel Box at the National YoungArts Foundation in Miami and was in partnership with Georgia’s Savannah College of Art and Design and curated by SCAD Museum and Exhibitions. Rolls-Royce’s Art Programme display was on view from Nov. 29 through Dec. 15, with Art Basel Miami Beach being held Dec. 1-4 (see story).
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