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| Bill Viola Emergence 2002 3 Photo Kira Perov |
“One
of the things the camera taught me was to see the world, the same
world that my eye sees, in its metaphoric, symbolic state. This
condition is, in fact, always present, latent in the world around us”
Bill
Viola
FAI
- Fondo Ambiente Italiano (the Italian National Trust) pays homage to
Bill Viola, the artist who is internationally
renowned as the standard-bearer for video art, through the exhibition
entitled Reflections, curated by Kira Perov
and set to be staged in the prestigious surroundings of Villa Panza
in Varese (home to the Panza Collection) from 12 May to 28
October 2012.
The
11 video installations that make up the show together document
Bill Viola's artistic endeavours from the mid-1970s to the first
decade of the 21st century and have been
conceived and selected by the artist specifically for Villa
Panza – a venue that is celebrated around the world for the
collection of contemporary art that Giuseppe Panza di Biumo put
together there from the early 1950s onwards. Viola's works will,
then, enter into a dialogue – an “elective affinity”
– with the humus constituted by
Giuseppe Panza's collection, in a project that will transform the
exhibition space, composed of the Scuderie (stable block) and one
wing of the first floor of the Villa, into a spiritual pathway, a
trip infused with light, colour and mysticism,
an interior voyage in search of the self.
The
installations, which last for between 6 and 60 minutes, invite the
viewers to “pause”, to let themselves slow down, and to become
both witnesses to the works and an integral part of them.
The
title of the exhibition highlights the central theme that accompanies
the viewers and brings them closer to Viola's art. One aspect that
emerges is the semantic value of the “reflection”, which
transcendentally represents the transmutation of the individual in
space, whereby the mirror could reflect the ego. Another aspect that
comes across is the theme of “reflection” as the desire to
know and recognise – and look within – our own being as
deeply as possible.
Viola's
work as a video artist
is concerned above all with the creation
of installations and environments
that sometimes occupy entire rooms, combining sounds, acoustic
effects and projections in architectural spaces that engage with the
viewers' bodies, minds and hearts. More than one work by Viola refers
to this intimate space
of experience into
which we are only very rarely permitted to stray – something that
seems to ‘lie’ at the bottom of our souls and that makes an
impression on our lives. But it is the artist himself who decides the
extent to which the public can approach this space; for example, in
the 1992 installation entitled “The
Sleepers”, on
show for the first time in Italy at Villa Panza, the images of
sleeping figures are projected onto black and white TV screens lying
at the bottom of seven white metal barrels filled to the brim with
water. The work can be viewed from a certain distance and only
through the transparent liquid, whereas in other works the viewers
are enveloped within the space, thereby allowing them to perceive the
strong sense of internal tension that is unleashed by the
installation.
As
Viola puts it: “One
of the characteristics of human beings is that they possess a lot of
ego, and they have multiple, contradictory identities that they can
switch between from one moment to the next. This, for me, is the most
exciting thing about working as an artist. It has taught me that the
raw material is not the camera and the monitor, but time and
experience itself – the
work exists not on the screen or the walls of the room, but in the
heart and mind of the person who has seen it.
It is there where all of the images come alive”.
Viola,
the lyrical, poetic
genius of video art,
has been a pioneer of videotape techniques, with which he began
experimenting in 1972 along with another two masters of the artform:
Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik. Viola uses video to explore
the phenomenon of perception,
which is considered as a route towards self-knowledge.
Human beings are not
only the central pivot of his contemplation but are also physically
at the centre of the lens of the video camera.
The people featured in these videos are professional actors who
document the exterior representation of human emotions. Viola's
entire filmography is shot through with his ontological interest,
which is an element in a great many of his works, including “The
Innocents”
(2008) and “Three
Women”(2008),
where the artists investigates nothingness – the condition we come
from and to which we will return.
Viola's
symbolism is cultured and complex, taking in an immense
range of knowledge.
His works are laden with references both to the western
classical tradition and to the eastern tradition,
as part of his incessant research into interpretations and
understandings of mysteries and of the sense of life. Thanks also to
the tool he has selected for the creation of his works, Viola
attempts to eliminate the static nature of paintings in the western
tradition and, in the process, he often finds himself engaging with
the great European
tradition of painting.
Indeed, the American artist is known for combining cutting-edge
technologies with the figurative and expressive heritage of the past,
with a particular focus on the corpus of Mediaeval and Renaissance
religious painting. In 2002's “Emergence”,
for example, Viola reworks the theme of the entombment of Christ
using an iconographic approach that takes its cue from a fresco by
Masolino da Panicale. In 1992's “Nantes
Triptych”, the
artist recovers the
tripartite form of the 14th-century
altarpiece in order to set up, on the one side, the act of birth, and
on the other, that of the final breath, with in the centre – as
if to mark a pause between one time and space and another – a
figure suspended in water.
The
beauty of his videos lies in their absence of rhetoric, in the
apparent minimalism of the shots, and in their refined and elegant
sense of drama, which never becomes wearing – rather, it draws
the viewers in, playing with their expectations.
The
catalogue, edited by Anna Bernardini, is published by Silvana
Editoriale.
Opening
times: 10am to 6pm; last entry 5.30pm
Entrance
to Villa Panza and the Panza Collection:
€11; €6 for students up to and including 26 years of age; €6
for FAI members; €27 for the family package (2 adults + 2 children
up to and including 14 years of age)
For
more information:
FAI –Villa e Collezione Panza – P.zza Litta 1, Varese
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