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1) Tate Modern
There’s a steady stream of Viola’s
work in London galleries. A few years ago I saw his ageing
triptych at the Tate – the one showing a baby on
the left, a dying man on the right, and someone else in
the middle. Five Angels For The New Millennium
is an installation comprising 5 large projection screens
in a darkened room. I read the introductory text about
his interest in metaphysical and spiritual themes, and
the fact that he nearly drowned when younger – also
a theme in his work.
Five Angels For The New Millennium consists
of 5 different versions of the same concept: a man emerging
from primeval waters, in reality reverse-frame entries
with hyper slow motion waters. Viola wants you to have
an immersive experience and the sound is particularly
powerful, probably the first impression you have if your
room entry coincides with one of the 5 climaxes, the emerging
bodies accompanied with a resounding crash – a digitally
edited version of the watery impact when you jump or dive
into water. These climaxes occur apparently at random
after a sonic and visual build-up: low level background
sounds mostly but not entirely with a bass frequency,
and undulating, rippling or sparkling waters. Each time
a climax is about to occur you can hear it above the other
displays and the audience orients itself accordingly.
There’s no doubt a darkened room,
large digital projections and an immersive soundscape
has considerable impact, more than a mere sculpture or
painting. But more importantly, Viola is employing powerful
thematic imagery which resonates with religious systems.
Five Angels For The New Millennium represents a spontaneous
emergence from the element water – frequently employed
in religious imagery at a metaphysical level (Hinduism)
or a ritual level (Christianity). This is Viola’s
‘message’, and his real talent is how he works
with these images and themes, abstracts and transforms
them, so they float free from all conceptual and institutional
associations. At best, Viola’s work can resonate
with the unconscious, through intermediary symbolism which
we inevitably absorb from our cultural conditioning. One
person next to me said “Bloody hell. I enjoyed that!”
His companion replied “It was great”. I suspect
neither of them could have articulated or conceptualised
it in spiritual terms, but it is in the nature of this
work that it has impact, regardless of prior experience
or knowledge. In that respect, Viola is an intermediary
between ordinary urban experience - what galleries more
usually consist of, however culturally sophisticated it
may be - and more sacred concerns.
2) National Gallery
On the Late Review, one
of the panellists compared The Passions
to a presentation for Gap clothing, saying the buttoned-down
collars “didn’t work” for him. All of
them were mildly disparaging, less than enthusiastic.
In the Sunday Times, critic Waldemar Januszczak insisted
on comparing it to the work of the old masters, saying
“We’d come to watch Botticelli, not the telly”.
The Passions is, admittedly, visually based on historically
famous paintings. But this is more incidental than Januszczak
suggests, it is not a case of old masters vs. modern video,
and the Gap criticism was ridiculous. I find it interesting
that critics praise and eulogise the silliness presented
annually at the Turner Prize, bought by Charles Saatchi
and presented in London galleries – but cannot understand
or respond favourably to the work of Bill Viola. The latter
is immeasurably more mature than trendy YBA nonsense,
more profound, compelling and meaningful. Viola believes
that art can be a transformative experience, and his work
is thus elevated into an entirely different league from
the unmade beds, dead animals, crumpled paper etc of supposed
artistic value. This is a relevant comparison because
Viola and the YBAs are equally contemporary, exhibited
at A List galleries around the world, and with international
reputations. Finding an unmade bed or an on/off light
switch an interesting experience compared to Viola’s
work is a little odd – but not when you consider
the following. Transformative art, based on metaphysical
concepts, has always been of marginal interest. You either
‘get it’, or you don’t, and most people
don’t. Watching the Late Review panel I felt they
were half asleep, hypnotised by cultural conditioning
and sophisticated learning.
There is an initial difficulty in video
art whereby we have to accept it as different from cinema,
video or, indeed, the “telly”. But if all
you do is react against Viola in terms of prior familiarity
with the electronic screen, then you really have to look
a little deeper. Why is it apparently easy to do this
when it concerns an unmade bed (for fuck sake), but difficult
when it concerns themes of life, death and transformation?
It says something about the kind of society in which we
live, and the values on which it is based.
One of the distinguishing themes of
Viola’s work is his interest in time, and his use
of hyper slow motion to create something that is neither
film nor photography. Film editing (he says) is an unconscious
language, a way of structuring time and space, which is
largely unnoticed. Shot reverse-shot enables us to make
sense of a conversation between two people, i.e. establish
a narrative context. Meditation (something Viola has experienced)
alters your perceptual experience of time, and in this
respect Viola’s work is meditative – not a
unique quality in the world of art, but unique in the
way he does it. The first exhibit at The Passions is a
huge screen showing a meeting between three women, based
on Carrucci’s The Visitation. As with his Five Angels
For The New Millennium, it is 1) hyper slow motion, 2)
accompanied by a necessary soundscape and 3) has a compelling
climax. The third woman appears about halfway through
the cycle, greets the others, and this is depicted with
a sonic roar and slow motion emotion. It’s an arresting
and beautiful moment, highlighting the overall theme for
the exhibition.
In the next adjoining room the NG has
placed some of the art work that has influenced Viola
concerning the ideas of life, death, and an existential
mourning based on human separation. We are all ultimately
alone, for most of the time we do not think about it or
are even aware of it, but it becomes painfully obvious
at moments of grief and mourning. The loved person dies
(when Viola lost his parents) which is itself traumatic,
and you additionally realise that eventually the same
fate will befall you. Viola interprets these concerns
in terms of Christian narrative as with the Christ figure
in Bosch’s Christ Mocked who, he says, looks out
of the picture thus beyond time and space, and directly
into your heart. As Buddha said: to be born is to suffer,
because everything is impermanent. Video is arguably suited
for this kind of theme because it is itself transitory.
When the gallery is empty at 11 pm, we know the paintings
are still there hanging on the walls. The videos, however,
have been switched off and are thus no longer visible.
Video relies on memory, not only at the level of moving
optical impression, but beyond that to the very epistemology
of the medium. The old painters tried to capture and thus
immortalise themes and imagery from mythology, Christianity
etc and thus make time stand still. Which can’t
be done. When photography was invented the ambivalent
nature of reproduction and representation became integral
to the meaning of the snapshot: a frozen moment of time
which no longer exists, thus paradoxical. Gilles Deleuze
defined what he called the moving image and the time image
in film (in his Cinema 1 and Cinema 2), arguing that film
is itself a philosophy and its artistic power was not
immediately realised. Although it is sometimes difficult
(and not necessarily rewarding) to understand what Deleuze
means, I suggest that Viola’s work (sometimes) fits
the category of the time image.
Viola says he is not interested in merely
re-interpreting existing work, and he briefly alludes
to this during the 15 minute documentary which is part
of the NG show. With one painting, he says, he drew some
sketches of it and then put them away; you have to allow
unconscious process to reformulate the ideas and the imagery.
His videos are (sometimes) clearly based on old masters
paintings, but his work is more than simple remediation.
The imagery is un-tethered from the religious systems
from which it derives, and thus has an abstract power
which bypasses critical perception. As I watched other
people I could see the tremendous impact the videos had,
and could also see (and sometimes hear) that the audience
had no or very little conceptual framework in which to
locate it. I watched someone survey the books Viola says
have influenced him, in the little retail area, and they
were clearly very novel to her. I had bought, read or
at least heard of almost all the titles concerning Zen,
Christian mysticism etc. But this is the important and
remarkable point: my appreciation of The Passions was
not therefore superior to hers or that of any other person;
it has an archetypal impact which reaches into the unconscious,
regardless of what learning you have or don’t have.
This is what Viola means when he says he wants his art
to ‘transform’ and it is what makes it profoundly
meaningful. I can read a Sufi story and it will make sense
because I am used to that kind of literature; for most
people it won’t have that effect for the simple
reason that they have not been exposed to it in a culture
which is based on material values. Viola’s work
is thus an important cultural project: it has a purpose,
and it achieves this by a non-didactic i.e. ‘artistic’
method. Not many people read Sufi stories or Buddhist
sutras, but thousands of people look at Bill Viola’s
videos and sense the meaning therein, even if they cannot
articulate or conceptualise what it is.
Paul Virilio argued that technology
magnifies our perception. Thus, the lens can reach out
into space or down into microscopic depths and show us
things we cannot normally see. For Viola (and myself),
the photographic and video lens implies philosophical
process; as with the Deleuze belief in film philosophy,
video is a philosophical form. Or rather it can be, since
clearly for much of the time it isn’t. Many of the
exhibits magnify passion, making it available for meditative
or critical reflection, framed within a First Noble Truth
ontology; Viola has stated many times how much the death
of his parents affected him. Some of the exhibits at The
Passions are a simple representation of passion i.e. feeling,
depicting actors in hyper slow motion grief, joy, anger
etc. One of the Late Review panellists referred to the
factor of body language, and without sound – as
in many of the works – this is clearly how ‘meaning’
is achieved. Viola creates a perceptual realm whereby
time is immeasurably slowed, so you can observe in great
detail the facial mannerisms that express and reveal different
emotions. I find these works less interesting than the
more metaphysical videos; you are more aware that ultimately,
you are watching actors perform in front of a camera.
However they do encourage you to slow down i.e. adopt
a more observant form of perception capable of noticing
otherwise unrecognised detail. I found it remarkable that
in the heart of London, in an interior section of the
NG, a large crowd of people were walking around an art
exhibition in almost total silence. There were no signs
saying Please Be Quiet, no rules requiring you to whisper,
if at all, only when necessary. And yet that is exactly
what was happening, as a testimony to Viola’s work.
I noticed that my breathing had slowed – something
with which I am familiar from extensive meditation and
practices like Tai Chi and the Alexander Technique. It
is a significant fact, which I am sure was a common experience
with my quiet fellow audience.
On a little placard, Viola had written
that he is interested in what he calls the interior eye,
whereby you see yourself in multifarious narrative situations.
In that respect, for the viewer of his work you find yourself
seeing yourself, i.e. aspects of the human condition in
visual/video form, amenable to observation. As I watched
the exhibit called Observance, my mind was initially fairly
blank; I had no preconceptions and merely watched the
small procession of observers. After several minutes I
suddenly realised what was happening, and it was a painful
shock that nearly made me cry. If I’d been alone,
I would probably have done so. There it was, unfolding
in front of my eyes on a plasma screen - the first Noble
Truth that to be born is to suffer, the trauma when I
lost my father and the ensuing processional rituals, and
the fact of my own certain death: those people were looking
at me with the inevitable mixture of grief, shock, horror,
powerlessness and incredulity. Only once before have I
ever had that kind of art experience, with an art student
‘installation’ (in reality no more than a
theatrical set) consisting of a dark-draped enclosure
with some sombre flowers: it was a mourning room that
suddenly triggered my years-old grief at losing my father.
It was undeniably affecting, but I was not grateful for
the experience because it lacked any kind of redeeming
or philosophical context, and sought merely to depict.
Observance was equally affecting, but mediated in a profoundly
philosophical context. I looked around and noticed a mid-50s
woman undergoing, I think, a similar experience to myself.
I reflected that it would not resonate so much with younger
people who have not yet been bereaved, and noticed there
were indeed some younger folk smiling and enjoying themselves,
clearly ignorant of the traumas of grief. Bill Viola:
art for grown ups.
Unlike the Five Angels For The New Millennium
exhibit, only some of The Passions is housed in darkened
rooms. It’s a significant factor, its simplicity
creating both ‘atmosphere’ and womb-like retreat
from the busy world. The centre piece - the largest exhibit
– is the video Viola calls The Crossing, which depicts
the simple action of a man running up towards the camera
and being immersed in water (The Crossing 1) and then
flame (The Crossing 2: the reverse side of the first screen,
i.e. two different projections). Again it is hyper slow
motion, giving you an extraordinarily beautiful display
of falling water.
This is not innovative or unique –
it’s been done before in cinematography and photographic
stills – but the piece of work as a whole is unique,
according to my experience at least. I know from my own
extensive meditation that there is a sense in which you
‘disappear’, i.e. dissolve into a bigger,
greater, more radiant and transcendent ‘identity’.
In one respect it is ‘death’; in another respect
the most awesome, beautiful, powerful and transformative
moments of my entire life. Small moments – they
don’t necessarily occupy large amounts of clock
time – where you transcend all pain because you,
there, cannot die; large moments, which are not moments
at all because you rest, like a recumbent Buddha, beyond
temporal fluctuation. Not experiences then, because experience
comes and goes and therefore has limits, but meaning of
life realisations. During one meditation period I was
surprised to notice my body had slowed so profoundly I
was barely breathing; I realised the yogic burial alive
practices are upside down, the wrong way round: they train
the organism to withstand near suffocation as a means
of bodily mastery; in fact, with spiritual transcendence
such things happen as automatic side effects, totally
unimportant in themselves but an observation which you
can discuss with other people. As I sat watching the watery
Crossing in the darkened room tears filled my eyes because
I have never seen such an accurate and beautiful evocation
of dissolving in meditation. The man runs up, he is covered
first with a few drops and then a downpour of water, and
he disappears. This is thus a cultural project which makes
these ideas mainstream, i.e. gives you reference points
by which you can express yourself.
There are further factors relevant to
Viola’s work, but the former are, for me, ultimately
the most important. He frequently uses multiple displays,
based on the triptych or multi-panel aesthetic. In the
documentary film he compares a multi-scene painting to
a storyboard; in the centre of the latter there is one
figure who represents timeless i.e. transcendent apprehension;
the surrounding scenes are the narrative episodes of life.
A two, three, four or five screen presentation has a different
psychological effect to one screen, probably triggering
a different and more holistic kind of brain-hemisphere
response. If you have a divided narrative attention you
have to assemble it yourself into a greater whole, and
this can also instil a more panoramic or metaphysical
contemplation of life. Not all of the exhibits at The
Passions are large scale and dramatic; I enjoyed Catherine’s
Room which consists of 5 quite small screens showing the
same person engaging in different activities in a monk-like
room. It operates at different levels: different stages
of the same life, the passing of the seasons, and the
multiple interests and activities which fill one person’s
life. In India, they believe life has 4 different stages:
innocence, youth and learning, the householder (married),
and then spiritual enquiry. In art, Indian theory categorises
work into 8 moods or rasas, which are 8 in number: Shringara
(the erotic), hasya (the comic), Karuna (the pathetic),
Raudra (the furious), Vira (the heroic), Bhayanaka (the
terrible), Adbhuta (the marvelous) and Shanta (the quiescent).
Catherine depicts different moods in 5 different narratives,
in the same room.
Although Viola’s work is mostly
contemplative, it is active because of the nature of video.
A painting is comparatively passive, because it has no
movement. I was quite tired after my trip to London and
when I pulled my new Viola books out of my bag, I felt
very disinclined to open them. I felt I’d had enough,
for the time being, because I needed to rest. I wouldn’t
feel the same way about a book of paintings, or looking
at a painting: they require nothing from me, i.e. I can
invest them with psychological energy or not, according
to my interest and mood. It is more difficult to ‘switch
off’ a video when it’s in front of your eyes;
this is not necessarily a disadvantage, but it is certainly
a different aesthetic to painting, even when the video
is extremely painterly.
In a sense, video is a transcendent
form because it is completely fluid. Especially with the
digital version, you have complete freedom to use sound,
imagery, film, photography or fine art references, anything,
in fact, which you wish to incorporate. After several
years’ experience of digital culture, I found myself
jaded and irritated at the computer based work which is
produced, and then justified with reference to various
simulation theories (Baudrillard especially), and/or ideas
about transcending the corporeal limitations of gender
and identity. I find myself relieved that in the realm
of digital culture, Viola’s work provides me with
reference points I can use to refute the silliness and
highlight the insight. I never was trapped in the flawed
intellectual theory that I sometimes endured, but it was
sometimes difficult to communicate this within mainstream
discourse. In the 15 minute documentary, Viola refers
to Bout’s Annunciation, and how it is not a literal
representation of an angel telling Mary that she is pregnant
with Jesus; it represents the pre-verbal, pre-cognitive
perception whereby a woman knows she is pregnant before
it has been scientifically or biologically discovered.
It may seem an intellectually facile interest for an artistic
topic – but it isn’t. There are non-intellectual
forms of perception, non-material levels of human experience.
This is not Romantic or naive, but a sophisticated and
subtle fact. At its best, Viola’s work operates
at that kind of pre-conscious level. I suspect that very
few people have looked at The Annunciation and regarded
the fact of subtle perception as sufficiently interesting
and sufficiently strong – as an idea – to
use it as the basis for artistic projects.
All artists undertake a personal journey
which has been romanticised, glamorised and in recent
years, marketed in self-developmental manuals like The
Artists’ Way. This is ultimately the reason why
most contemporary art irritates me: I do not accept that
someone who produces an empty bed, a light switch, dead
shark etc. is embarked on any kind of journey I can respect.
They are not investigating themselves or life itself in
any meaningful way that I recognise, and for that reason
their so called art is vacuous nonsense. That doesn’t
mean I don’t enjoy or appreciate secular art, it
means that the YBA nonsense is at the other end of the
spectrum where it has no meaning, either spiritual or
secular. Viola is in a completely different league, and
he is someone I can respect.
More here......
here
(sermonising? foolish fellow, you have so failed
to understand)....
and here
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