the passions
Judging from press commentaries and various conversations following the opening of his exhibition in Australia, Bill Viola’s The Passions (2000-02) and the accompanying Five Angels for the Millennium (2001) have attracted polarised responses. Given the ambitious and grand themes that this major artist most often addresses—forces of life and death (often portrayed through Christian themes in contemporary guise), human interaction and emotions, our place in the cosmos and the effect on the senses when confronted by the sublime—it is small wonder that opinion is divided. Some loath being manipulated by an art which reaches out empathetically through human gesture and facial expression and which uses highly theatrical tableaux, while others revel in recognising shared experience and engaging on the journeys of inquiry and transcendence that Viola offers through his video works and installations.
The Canberra showing—the largest exposure Australia has had to the work of Viola—reminded me of both his video installation The Passing (1991) and also of The Greeting (1995). The earlier project ambitiously addresses the endlessly repeating cycle of death and regeneration through footage of childbirth and its inevitable sequel (prompted by his mother’s death). The presence of water is an enduring leitmotiv in The Passing while a sound-scape creates an intensely bodily and spiritual cast. With the 1995 work, time is presented not as Newtonian (that is, linear and progressive) but is linked more with psychological time, which has no rules. The film’s extreme slow motion concentrates the viewer’s attention on the interaction between three women, with acute attention given to the subtle shifts of posture, expression and gesture. The other overwhelming characteristic of The Greeting is its concern with representation within western religious painting using sophisticated