Tate Modern | Permanent Collection | Until January 2004
Bill Viola: Five Angels for the Millenium (2001)
Since the early 1970s, Bill Viola has used video to explore universal themes such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness.
Five Angels for the Millenium (2001) consists of five large-scale projections showing figures descending and ascending through water. Accompanying ambient music reaches a crescendo as the figures erupt through glistening pools. At times the figures hover so close to the surface that it's hard to tell if the viewpoint is from above or below the water. Each screen is individually titled. In Departing, light glimmers through the dark waters and a figure floats into view, rushing through a storm of air bubbles to the surface. In Birth a figure shoots through the frame, while in Fire, mystical light turns the waters a deep blood red. Ascending shows a figure floating face down as though drowned. In Creation, a figure with outstretched arms suggests the iconography of the Crucifixion.
The image of a figure moving through water is one that appears in a number of Viola’s works. It’s a fascination that can be traced back to a childhood experience when, at the age of ten, he nearly drowned in a lake. More broadly, his focus on the renewing cycles of life, and on the phenomena of sensory perception as an avenue to self-knowledge, draws on Christian mysticism and Eastern philosophies. Many of his recent video installations have contained references to religious art from around 1500. For Viola birth and death ’are mysteries in the truest sense of the word, not meant to be solved, but experienced and inhabited.’ Accordingly, in his video installations, he aims to create a complete ’experience’, immersing the viewer in a sensory environment of image and sound. Bill Viola was born in New York in 1951.
Uma das instalações mais espectaculares que já vi.
Quinze minutos bem passados, numa sala grande e escura.
Since the early 1970s, Bill Viola has used video to explore universal themes such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness.
Five Angels for the Millenium (2001) consists of five large-scale projections showing figures descending and ascending through water. Accompanying ambient music reaches a crescendo as the figures erupt through glistening pools. At times the figures hover so close to the surface that it's hard to tell if the viewpoint is from above or below the water. Each screen is individually titled. In Departing, light glimmers through the dark waters and a figure floats into view, rushing through a storm of air bubbles to the surface. In Birth a figure shoots through the frame, while in Fire, mystical light turns the waters a deep blood red. Ascending shows a figure floating face down as though drowned. In Creation, a figure with outstretched arms suggests the iconography of the Crucifixion.
The image of a figure moving through water is one that appears in a number of Viola’s works. It’s a fascination that can be traced back to a childhood experience when, at the age of ten, he nearly drowned in a lake. More broadly, his focus on the renewing cycles of life, and on the phenomena of sensory perception as an avenue to self-knowledge, draws on Christian mysticism and Eastern philosophies. Many of his recent video installations have contained references to religious art from around 1500. For Viola birth and death ’are mysteries in the truest sense of the word, not meant to be solved, but experienced and inhabited.’ Accordingly, in his video installations, he aims to create a complete ’experience’, immersing the viewer in a sensory environment of image and sound. Bill Viola was born in New York in 1951.
Uma das instalações mais espectaculares que já vi.
Quinze minutos bem passados, numa sala grande e escura.
0 Comments:
Enviar um comentário
<< Home