Bill Viola - Being Time
19 June - 5 September 2009
The Pier Arts Centre presents an exhibition of work by the acclaimed American artist Bill Viola this summer.
Bill Viola has been creating emblematic installations in video and sound for over 35 years. He helped pioneer the development of video art in the USA in the 1970s and his work is now highly regarded around the globe.
Bill Viola - Being Time is to be shown as part of the ARTIST ROOMS tour. ARTIST ROOMS on Tour with The Art Fund supported by the Scottish Government is an inspired partnership with the UK’s independent art charity and national government enabling Tate and National Galleries of Scotland to display ARTIST ROOMS throughout the UK.
Three of the works in the exhibition, Catherine's Room 2001, Four Hands 2001 and Silent Mountain 2001 are from the Passions Series: an exploration of human emotions that express suffering and transcendence, inspired in large part by Viola’s study of devotional paintings of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance and by his experience of personal loss.
While the Passions pieces are silent the fourth work in the exhibition, Ascension 2000, is a large-scale projection that fills the room with image and sound. It illustrates the cyclical nature of birth and death as a figure plunges into the water from above, accompanied by a roaring sound. He then moves slowly through an aqueous world ascending to the surface, only to descend involuntarily once again, disappearing into the darkness below the edge of the frame. Then the cycle begins anew.
The exhibition is presented in collaboration with
BILL VIOLA STUDIO supported by Haunch of Venison.
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