“The fundamental aspect of video is not the image, even though you can stand in amazement at what can be done electronically, how images can be manipulated and the really extraordinary creative possibilities. For me the essential basis of video is the movement—something that exists at the moment and changes in the next moment.”
B elonging to Bill Viola’s renowned seven-part Purification series, Ablutions (2005) is a video diptych that records a man and woman, side by side, performing the ritual act of handwashing. Viola’s Purification series features video works that document certain bodily preparations undertaken by a man and woman, immersing the viewer in a contemplative sphere focusing on the human figure. In Ablutions, two parallel streams of water fall from the top edge of each screen, the left-hand screen displaying a female torso and the right a male torso, both nude, approaching the falling water. Moving slowly and methodically, the figures slowly cup their hands and approach the clear stream. The video plays on a loop to further emphasize the transfixing, ritual nature of the action of handwashing. In Ablutions, Viola presents a quotidian moment as a ceremony, offering profound, unexpected intimacy on display.
A contemporary video artist focused on the fundamental experiences of humanity, such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness, Bill Viola has been heralded internationally as one of today’s leading artists. Instrumental in establishing video as a crucial form of contemporary art, Viola has been referred to as “Rembrandt of the video age” and a “hi-tech Caravaggio.”
Throughout his esteemed career, Viola has been awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989), the XXI Catalonia International Prize (2009), and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association (2011). Viola has had exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, among many others.
“I latched on to the video camera as a way to see between the cracks, to point my camera at things people don’t normally film, to see beyond, into a darker place.”