Nandu reporter learned that the west bund art museum and the Pompidou Center five-year exhibition Chen cooperation project will be presented in the box exhibition hall on December 10, 2021 video art pioneer Bill Viola's important work "Millennium Five Angels".
Born in New York State in 1951, Bill Viola has been experimenting with radical art using electronic media since the early 1970s. Like many of his contemporaries, he realized that television screens could create a new reality, connecting diverse cultures from afar. From his early experiments exploring black-and-white video to the complex treatment of large- hd projection images, his work is unique in its genre.
In a career spanning half a century, Viola has become one of the most respected experimental video artists of our time for her profound exploration of the state of human life, and has been praised as "Rembrandt in the Age of Image". Viola's works focus on major human issues such as life and death, emotion, and spirituality and belief that transcend human experience, and use the latest new media technologies of image and sound to stimulate strong spiritual experiences, triggering resonance and reflection from audiences in different cultural backgrounds.
A few years ago, Guangzhou audiences had the privilege of experiencing this majestic visual tour by Bill Viola. In September 2017, "Bill Viola's Selected Works From 1977 to 2014" was held at RMCA at the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art in Guangzhou, becoming one of the most important exhibitions in the Chinese contemporary art world that year.
Bill Viola, Five Angels for the Millennium, 2001 Photo： Kira Perov © Bill Viola Studio
The Five Angels of the Millennium, presented in Shanghai, is a monumental environmental video installation created by Bill Viola on the occasion of the millennium, directed by Joshua Lee. Cox, Andrew M. Tritz and the two performers presented "Departure Angel", "Birth Angel", "Blazing Angel", "Sublimation Angel" and "Creation Angel". These mysterious images were recorded by the artist in 1999 at a swimming pool in Long Beach, California, with an underwater camera. During the editing process, the five shots were slowed down, some edited to reverse shots, and others upside down. The whole work is filled with unknown energies and becomes a projection space for the viewer: each takes their place in this floating, suspended time.
Bill Viola, Five Angels for the Millennium-Birth Angel, 2001 Photo：Kira Perov © Bill Viola Studio
Perhaps for some viewers, Viola's subject matter may seem too serious and heavy, but the reason why he has won the title of the most popular video installation artist lies in the breathtaking power of his work - entering the dark installation space, experiencing the critical points of various life states, screaming, dreams and memories after silence, your body will be more directly involved in the work than your knowledge system and interpretive impulses, to experience the unknown under the surface of the senses.
The sensory experience was the starting point for Bill Vio's creations. He shakes the audience's sensory experience through the contradictions of time and space and the blurring of cognition. His work places the human person at the center of various elements, drawing nourishment from numerous cultures and traditions, distilling a diffuse spirituality.
Therefore, in The Five Angels of The Millennium, the artist does not provide any narrative elements. Bill Viola said: "With these 'angels', the whole space is the whole work. And your body becomes the frame, the dividing line. "The Five Angels of The Millennium seeks to provoke reflection on the faith or spiritual condition of humanity at the dawn of a new era. With a unique ritualistic aesthetic, the work invites the viewer to step into the "black box" of the West Bund Art Museum, into an emotional experience that the artist describes as "wrapped in the church"—about "what you can't see and that is not superficially tangible." "Bill Viola: The Five Angels of the Millennium" is a new audiovisual installation in the Box Gallery of the West Bund Museum, following "Margaret Hume: Gisant II" and "Laurent Grasso". West Bund Art Museum not only pioneered the "permanent exhibition" of the history of modern and contemporary art in China, but also continued to launch the "Special Exhibition Unit" focusing on different art sections and interdisciplinary exhibition content. As an exhibition space focusing on sound and video art, the Box Exhibition Hall strives to bring a more cutting-edge and diverse immersive experience to visitors to the museum.
The exhibition will run until April 10, 2022.
Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting