Bill Viola. Isolde’s Ascension (The Shape of Light in the Space after Death)
Stella Art Foundation in Skaryatinsky Pereulok
July 13 – August 20, 2011
Stella Art Foundation presents an
installation by the great contemporary video artist Bill Viola from the
Foundation’s collection.
Stella Kesaeva, President of Stella Art
Foundation, said before the exhibition, "In 2005, the Orchestra of the
Mariinsky Theater under the direction of Valery Gergiev performed Richard
Wagner’s opera at the Opera de Bastille in Paris. The only stage decorations
were Bill Viola’s installation. I attended the premiere, which made a big
impression on me. In 2008, I decided to support Valery Abisalovich’s initiative
to show Wagner’s opera at the Stars of the White Nights musical festival in St.
Petersburg. Stella Art Foundation co-organized the Russian premiere at the
time. I’m glad that the Foundation has the opportunity today to present part of
Bill Viola’s installation in Moscow."
Isolde’s
Ascension is part of Bill Viola’s major "Tristan
Project" that was inspired by Richard Wagner’s opera (music drama) Tristan and Isolde. In it, Viola does
not offer a narrative interpretation of the opera’s plot but creates an
autonomous visual world that is parallel to what takes place on stage.
Viola’s film literally submerges the viewer
into a body of water through which a light ray penetrates, gradually becoming
ever more intense. At one moment, its movement raises Isolde’s body draped in
shining clothes from the depths, lifting it high. The ray of light then dims
just as slowly as it appeared, leaving the screen in total darkness. As Bill
Viola says himself, "Richard
Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is the story of a love so intense and
profound that it cannot be contained in the material bodies of the lovers.
In order to fully realize their love, Tristan and Isolde must ultimately
transcend life itself."
Viola nearly drowned in his childhood, and
this extreme experience led to water becoming a recurrent theme in his work.
For Viola, water, like the other forces of nature, are equivalents of powerful
human feelings. This aspect may have attracted Viola to Wagner, for whom, according
to Viola, "musical instruments were the embodiments of the forces of nature -
the non- human world in which passion is raw, surging, seething and
uncontrolled - whether it's the sea, a storm or a feeling you have inside you."
Viola makes these primary world forces visible. His slow video, accompanied by
three-dimensional sound or thundering silence, brings the viewer into the space
of all-encompassing contemplation.
Bill
Viola (born 1951) is an internationally renowned artist
that has contributed to the emergence of video as a key trend of contemporary
art. For almost 40 years already, he has created video films, monumental video
installations, sound environments, and electronic musical performances. His
environment video installations use high technologies yet are simple and clear.
In his work, Viola keeps studying the horizons of sensory perception,
considering it to be a means of self-cognition. His work always focuses on
universal human experience – birth, death, and the life of consciousness – and
refers to a large body of spiritual traditions from Christian mysticism to
Islamic Sufism and Zen Buddhism.
Bill Viola. Isolde’s Ascension (The Shape of Light in the Space after Death)
Video and sound installation, 10 minutes 30 seconds, 2005
Photo: Kira Perov
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