Sense of overkill
Andrew Lambirth
Bill Viola: The Passions The National Gallery, until 4 January 2004
A 'though I do not value most video art 1-1.— too much of it is sloppily made and vacuous beyond belief — I make an exception of Bill Viola. Since his 1992 Whitechapel show, and more particularly since seeing 'The Messenger' at the South London Gallery in 1997, I have rated his work highly, for its content as well as its impeccable production values. The idea for 'The Messenger' was simple enough — a naked man sinking down through deep water and then rising again — but it was so well-presented that there was the possibility for all sorts of meanings and resonances to surround it. Of course, since the video was commissioned by Durham Cathedral, the principal meaning was presumed or intended to be spiritual. Certainly, the impassive, slowly moving figure trailing bubbles was open to interpretation. The people with whom I watched it found the piece both beautiful and impressive, approaching the numinous, and seeming to offer a meaning that was never quite explicit. In some way, this was felt to be comforting.
More recently I slipped into Tate Modern to look at Viola's substantial installation '5 Angels for the Millennium' (2001). Again, water plays a large part in the imagery (it appears that Viola fell out of a boat when he was ten and sank; he felt no fear of drowning, rather 'absolute bliss'), as a plunging or levitating clothed figure bursts through the water into view accompanied by an appropriately crescendoing aquatic soundtrack. (Viola is good on ambient noise.) There are five vast screens in a darkened room with different episodes relayed slowly on each. Viola has called the installation 'an enveloping emotional experience like that of a church'. I left, thinking that this work was a deeply poetic meditation on Christian iconography and belief, that it was inventive and contemporary in a way that so much new art simply is not.
Now, there is an exhibition of Viola's recent work at the National Gallery. This follows on from his inclusion in a group show at the NG in 2000, called Encounters: New Art from Old, to which Viola contributed a video called 'The Quintet of the Astonished', his response to Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'Christ Mocked (The Crowning with Thorns)'. This piece is included in the current show in the Sainsbury Wing, along with 13 other videos. And there is the first problem. There is simply too much to take in. The previous two experiences of Viola's work I have discussed have been of single exhibits, when the full impact of his way of seeing could be appreciated without interference or the need to make comparisons. The intensity of each experience was therefore undiluted, pristine (apart from squealing schoolchildren playing Tag in the gloom of the Tate's installation) and deeply affecting. At the National Gallery there is a deadly sense of overkill.
How many videos of people weeping (or otherwise being wracked with emotion) can one take at any one time? And it's all in slow motion. The suspense (or rather lack of it) is unbearable. One video has a running time of 82 minutes. (Revealingly, the show's curators have not included running times on the labels.) It's so slowed down that nothing appears to have happened if you revisit it half-an-hour later. Thankfully, the average duration of a piece is between ten and 20 minutes, but how many are the typical gallerygoers expected to watch in toto? Or has our channel-hopping, browsing culture taken over to such an extent that even the artist doesn't expect you to do more than glance at a screen and then move on? If the exhibition were free, this would be less of a concern, for the interested could return again and again, supposing they had the spare time. But it costs £.7 to get in unless you buy a season ticket for £9. It would have made much more sense to limit the size of the exhibition. Viola's work is best seen singly, but, if there had to be a large show, restrict the number of pieces to three or four. Then people might have the chance to appreciate them properly.
That said, there are some amazing things to be seen. The show opens with a brief selection by Viola of past art drawn from the NG, the V&A and the British Museum. Among the treasures are a 'Mater Dolorosa' and 'Christ Crowned with Thorns', both by the workshop of Dirk Bouts, a Japanese Noh mask and Giovanni Bellini's 'The Dead Christ Supported by Angels'. Also the Bosch referred to earlier. Viola's commentaries (presented as wall panels) on these objects are worth perusing. He is much drawn to the traditions of the East, to Zen Buddhism and Sufism, but his current instinct is to mine Christian imagery, perhaps because of its familiarity and accessibility in the West. His view seems to be that the Christian Church should not have a monopoly of such potent images as the Pieta. (As he says: 'Images have their life because they're untethered and free-flowing.) He feels justified in reclaiming the Pieta for less-exalted purposes, and effectively recycling it as a video of a naked man erupting perilously from a well, to be cradled by adoring women. The piece is entitled 'Emergence'.
'Emergence' is given a room to itself, as is 'The Crossing', which is the real heart and point of the exhibition. This is a large double-sided screen on which two parallel narratives (or rather sequences without narrative) are played out. A figure walks gradually towards you and comes to a full stop. On one screen he is then enveloped in flame, on the other a cataract of water pours down upon him. With accompanying soundtrack (and most of the other videos in this show are surprisingly silent), this is a stunning piece. It's partly its scale and simplicity: it's larger than us and free
standing, whereas most of the other videos are small and wall-mounted. It's also elemental: fire and water. The flames are beautifully filmed, particularly as they die away. The piece deals with the dissolution of the body, but also with rites of purification. For me, the show would have been a rich one if this were the only exhibit.
Upstairs, on the bridge between the old and new buildings of the NG, is a final video, entitled 'Six Heads'. It is intended to show six different emotions, or passions (remember the exhibition's title) — joy, sorrow, anger, fear, awe and sleep or dreaming. The face of the same actor gibbers and grimaces and looks ecstatic in six different moods. In watching it, one feels a terrible sense of intrusion, of violating another's privacy. It's as if Viola were a spy in the House of Passion. All artists are to some extent voyeurs, but this work seemed a bit too obvious, at times even sentimental. But at least the basement rooms of the National Gallery can be seen at their best — blacked out.
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