Bill Viola
(United States of America 1951– )
- Title
- Bodies of light
- Year
- 2006
- Media categories
- Time-based media, Video, DVD
- Materials used
- video diptych, 9:16 ratio, black and white, silent, 21:27 min; plasma screens
- Edition
- 1/7
- Dimensions
-
102.0 x 122.0 x 9.0cm overall
- Credit
- John Kaldor Family Collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program - Accession number
- 252.2011.a-b
- Copyright
- © Bill Viola
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
Performers: Jeff Mills and Lisa Rhoden
Bill Viola began experimenting with the possibilities of video as an art form early in the 1970s. He explores and manipulates the specific characteristics of his medium, such as light and linear time, by speeding up, slowing down and reversing his footage. He uses different cameras to create particular atmospheres, ranging from black-and-white surveillance footage to high-end video transferred from 35mm film.
Viola has long been interested in eastern religions and more recently in Christian iconography, in particular images that evoke our ephemeral existence on earth. ‘Observance’ is from ‘The passions’ series. In this work figures move out of the dark towards the portal of the screen, gazing beyond the frame into the viewer’s space as if into a tomb and then with a melancholy air they move away. ‘Six heads’ explores a range of human passions while in ‘Bodies of light' a male and a female stand in water while a globe of light moves up and down their bodies, eventually dissolving their forms.
- Bibliography (7)
-
Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Editor), John Kaldor Family Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2011, 257, 264-65 (illus.).
Kira Perov (Author), Bill Viola: Bodies of Light, 2009.
Kira Perov (Author), Bill Viola: visioni interiori, 2008.
Kira Perov (Editor), Bill Viola Love/Death: The Tristan Project, 2006, 7, 21, 22-23 (illus.).
Peter Sellars (Author), New Crowned Hope: Festival Wien, 2006.
Shirley J. Madill (Author), Sublime embrace: experiencing consciousness in contemporary art, 2006.
Randy Jayne Rosenberg (Author), Missing peace: artists & the Dalai Lama, 2006.
- Exhibition history (2)
-
Bill Viola: fall into Paradise: Love/Death: The Tristan Project, 2005, Haunch of Venison, 21 Jun 2006–02 Sep 2006.
40 years: Kaldor Public Art Projects, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 02 Oct 2009–14 Feb 2010.
