Bill Viola : installations and videotapes Essays by Barbara London, J. Hoberman, Donald Kuspit, selected writings by Bill Viola, edited by Barbara London Author Viola, Bill, 1951- Date 1987 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art ISBN 0870706241 Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2162 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art BILL VIOLA The Museum of Modern Art, New York Bill Viola INSTALLATIONS AND VIDEOTAPES Published on the occasion of the exhibition Bill Viola October 16, 1987-January 3, 1988 organized by Barbara London, Assistant Curator, Video Department of Film The Museum of Modern Art, New York Copyright © 1987 The Museum of Modern Art, New York All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 87-61945 ISBN 0-87070-624-1 Edited by Susan Weiley Designed by Emsworth Studios Production by Susan Schoenfeld Printed by Eastern Press, New Haven, Connecticut Bound by Sendor Bindery, Inc., New York, New York The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, New York 10019 Printed in the United States of America Cover: Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House. 1982. Video/sound installation, La Chartreuse, Villeneuve-les-Avignon, France. 1986. Frontispiece: Bill Viola on location for Room for St. John of the Cross , Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. 1983. Bill Viola INSTALLATIONS AND VIDEOTAPES Essays by BARBARA LONDON J. HOBERMAN DONALD KUSPIT Selected Writings by BILL VIOLA Edited by BARBARA LONDON The Museum of Modern Art, New York Contents Acknowledgments 7 Bill Viola: The Poetics of Light and Time 9 by Barbara London Selected Works and Writings 23 by Bill Viola The Reflecting Pool: Bill Viola and the Visionary Company by J. Hoberman Bill Viola: Deconstructing Presence 73 by Donald Kuspit Comprehensive List of Works 81 Bibliography 87 List of Distributors 89 Acknowledgments 7 Following the Museum's more than problem-solving abilities, experience, helped sustain a calm equilibrium to the decade-long commitment to its experi and insight to planning the complex video program. mental video program with regular installations. Funding for the exhibition and catalog screenings, expanding archive, and The catalog could not have been done has been generously provided by Celeste study center, "Bill Viola: Installations without the contribution of many indi Bartos, the Contemporary Arts Council and Videotapes" is the Museum's first viduals. In particular it was a great plea of The Museum of Modern Art, and major exhibition to feature an artist who sure working with Designer Antony Margot and John Ernst. Support was also works primarily with video and sound. Drobinski. His sensitivity to the tem provided by the Sony Corporation of Carefully planned and organized over poral and technological aspects of Viola's America, the National Endowment for the last three years, the show has been a art contributed to his creating a beau the Arts, the New York State Council on challenging and rewarding endeavor, a tiful, eloquent publication. I am in the Arts, the John D. and Catherine T. stimulating experience heightened by debted to editor Susan Weiley for her MacArthur Foundation, and J. Walter the perspicacity and wit of Bill Viola clear thinking and especially her under Thompson USA, Inc. Their encourage himself. At every step of the way, many standing of the relation of the artist's ment means a great deal to the video friends have generously given their time work to Eastern philosophy. Susan program and to the field of independent and consideration, making the project Schoenfeld carefully oversaw pro video. possible. We are most grateful to the Los duction details and enthusiastically The work of Bill Viola has been sup Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art found effective solutions at every step. ported by the National Endowment for for lending its new acquisition, Viola's Throughout I have had the good fortune the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Room for St. John of the Cross. of working with Kira Perov, whose While I am unable to individually photographs bring to life Viola's ideas John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Massachusetts Council thank everyone who has extended him discussed in the catalog. She also con self or herself on the exhibition's behalf, I tributed significantly to the chronology on the Arts and the Humanities, the Sony Corporation, the Japan/U.S. Friend want to mention a few key people. From and bibliography sections. I would also ship Commission, the Polaroid Corpora the very beginning I have benefited from like to thank Linda Fisher, Mary Lucier, and enjoyed Director of the Department Tom Wolf, and Brian Wood for their tion, and Art Matters, Inc. of Film Mary Lea Bandy's steadfast sup helpful conversations, which contrib B. L. port, enthusiasm, and keen intuition. uted to my own essay. The video program has received gener I also wish to acknowlege my appre ous support and encouragement from the ciation of the willingness of Garish Museum's Video Advisory Committee Bhargava, Jack Goldman, Abby Levine, and the Contemporary Arts Council. John McPherson, and Ken Nees of the Members have graciously given their Sony Corporation of America, Ren time, expertise, and financial assistance. McMann, George Moss, and Mark From these groups I would especially Schubin, to interrupt what they were like to thank Joyce and George Moss, doing to answer my numerous technical Barbara Pine, Jodie and John Eastman, questions. The staff at Electronic Arts and Terrence Eagleton. In organizing the Intermix always responded enthusi exhibition, I came to have even greater astically to queries about Viola's video respect for Production Manager Jerry tapes. Throughout the exhibition's Neuner, who brought his thorough-going planning, my assistant Sally Berger 10 BARBARALONDON been to learn the discipline required to finally became concrete for me, like sounds experiencing art took precedence over develop a skill. Like other teenagers at are to a composer, I really began to learn. the production of tangible, salable art the time, he was indirectly affected by Soon I made what was for me an easy switch objects. Considerable artistic activity ex the social upheaval of the 1960s, and the over to video. I never thought about [video] in plored the environment in the South terms of images so much as electronic pro questioning of many traditional, middle- west, with its vast, open desert spaces 3 cess, a signal. class values. and provocative traces of Indian culture. Viola studied art at Syracuse Uni Viola began working full-time with In this setting such artists as Nauman, versity, graduating from the College of video, which unlike Super-8 film, al Robert Irwin, and James Turrell broke Visual and Performing Arts in 1973. Not lowed him to view the image both before away from the restrained concerns of the interested in pursuing more traditional and during recording. He began by creat then popular Minimalism to develop art mediums, he spent time in the "ex ing exercises that deliberately explored their subjective, process-oriented, spatial perimental studio" of the art department. structure and form. "When Marshall pieces that explored individual percep He explored performance art —respond McLuhan wrote his famous manifesto tion. At the same time Peter Campus was ing to the intensity of working with the 'the medium is the message,' he was carefully investigating the characteristics manipulation of the self in a live situa saying that communication is transmit of "live" video. Campus wrote that "the tion —before looking into experimental ted by the very form of the medium video camera makes possible an exterior 4 film. With friends he would analyze the itself." He was influenced by Gene point of view simultaneous with one's image, camera, and structure of films by Youngblood's book Expanded Cinema own. This advance over the film camera such artists as Michael Snow, Ken Jac (1974), in which he described the tech is due to the vidicon tube, similar to the obs, Hollis Frampton, and Stan nical processes of video as being key retina of the eye, continuously transpos Brakhage. Around the same time, during formal elements of the aesthetics of the ing light (photon) energy to electrical his sophomore year, his professor pur medium. At first Viola saw his raw mate energy. ... It is easy to utilize video to chased an early Sony portable, black- rial as being only the technology, but clarify perceptual situations because it and-white camera and simple reel-to-reel then came to understand how important separates the eye surrogate from the eye- recorder for the "experimental studio." the other half of the art process is: the brain experience we are all too familiar 5 At the same time Viola was studying viewing experience, those moments of with." electronic music. In an interview he de dynamic interaction called perception. After graduation Viola attended a scribed the connection between the two Inspired also by the video and perfor workshop given by Campus. Viola re mediums: mance pieces of artists Bruce Nauman spected Campus's intensity of vision and and Vito Acconci, Viola set up problem- the aggressive way he dealt with issues of The crucial thing for me was the process of solving situations, working with the self-confrontation, and he responded to going through an electronic system, working physical aspects of both electronics and the overtly emotional tenor of his care with these standard kinds of circuits which architectural space. He was dealing con fully controlled, ominously lit installa became a perfect introduction to a general ceptually with video's properties, and tions.