I have a very ambivalent attitude to the work of Bill Viola. I first ran into his video art when in 2003 I encountered by accident a retrospective of his work at the National Gallery in London. Since then I have seen several pieces about his work on TV, the most recent being a BBC feature on his latest project to devise two installations for chapels in St. Paul’s Cathedral. He is certainly an extremely impressive artist, both with respect to the technical sophistication of his work and its visual impact. Why do I entertain such strong reservations about it? This is a question I have not managed to answer to my own satisfaction yet, but a couple of lines of thought are emerging.
I think that the greatest area of caution I have relates to the theological ambitions of the work he does. My impression (on the basis of the programme I watched yesterday, which did include some long interview sections with him) is that he is not a person with a very developed personal religious commitment. He comes to religious subjects from the outside. Consequently, when he does so he is able to do little more than provide us with a video version of images and ideas that are not especially profound, or if they are so their profundity derives from the fact that he is re-processing in a new medium images that are already pretty standard in Christian iconography. There are no real challenges to us in this material.
My second concern is triggered by his celebrated piece entitled The Passions. I actually found this to be quite trite in its treatment of the theme, resembling a filmed version of a rather routine drama workshop. I used to teach an interesting and innovative course entitled Society as Theatre, which explored the use of the metaphor of the theatre in the social sciences. The course was not confined to lectures, but included a succession of practical workshops in different theatrical traditions. Watching The Passions I was reminded of Stanislavski’s criticisms of many performances, which did not actually connect with the inner experience of the actor, and remained content to offer a purely external representation of emotional states. Viola’s actors are “representing” passion, but not experiencing it.
Not all of Viola’s work elicits such negative responses from me. Technically some of his work is absolutely brilliant, and I find myself asking “How the heck did he do that?” Pieces such as The Crossing are thoroughly memorable. Also I have to say that, as a practicing artist, I admire immensely the care and discipline with which he prepares every project.
By happy chance the Royal Academy in London is staging another Viola exhibition, with the challenging and audacious intention of comparing his work with that of Michelangelo. I am intending to pay this a visit next month, and I will have the opportunity to check out my current reservations on that occasion. No doubt I will also have the opportunity to share my responses with you in a subsequent post.