The work of Bill Viola successfully combines sophisticated video, film, and audio technology with primal archetypes and a mystical spirituality. In 1996 he was commissioned to create a large-scale video projection for Durham Cathedral in northern England. In this work, The Messenger, a nude male figure gradually emerges from the depths of a body of water and then takes a deep, resonant breath before sinking slowly back down to begin the cycle anew. The sacred atmosphere and cavernous medieval architecture of the original site underlined the ethereal aspect of these images, though their power is nearly as transcendent in a gallery setting. The spiritual and physical circuit of birth, life, and death—a theme that Viola continually examines in his work—comes across with particular visual and aural clarity in The Messenger.

Similar motifs of earthly and spiritual renewal and the transcendent power of the moving image animate The Crossing, a dual video projection piece in which the visual force is amplified by high-intensity stereo sound. In the original installation, synchronized image sequences were projected onto both sides of a double-sided screen, each of which showed a dark human form walking in slow motion toward the viewer. The figure eventually filled both displays, stopped, paused, and was slowly subsumed by a growing mass of roaring flames on one side, and by a trickle of water that swells into a rushing deluge on the other. In the 1997 exhibition Bill Viola: Fire, Water, Breath at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo, the projections were presented side-by-side, playing the images against each other and allowing the viewer to absorb them simultaneously.

A pioneer in video art since the early 1970s, Viola says that he has “never lost faith in the image.” He has embraced new mediums while maintaining classical aesthetic values. The repetition and extreme slow motion of The Crossing and The Messenger root the works in a mesmerizing temporality that displaces the space-time of the exhibition space and draws the viewer into visual sequences that seem to play out in perpetuity. Viola’s imagery has an immediate visceral impact, but his ability to stretch and slow elemental sensory experience through the use of art and technology is what deepens his works into vehicles of spiritual meditation.

Bridget Alsdorf