Viola, first exhibition in Korea after passing away this year
Revisiting time-perception through experimental video
At kukje Gallery in Seoul until January next year.
The works of Bill Viola (1951-2024), who has presented works of art that transformed video media using various technologies as the 20th century, visited Korea. Bill Viola’s solo exhibition ‘Moving Stillness’, which opened at Kukje Gallery K1 and K3 in jongno-gu, Seoul on the 3rd, is the first exhibition held in Korea since the artist passed away in July.
If you go to the K1 exhibition hall lobby, you can see ‘Information’, a work created by Viola after graduating from college. In this work, the distorted screen that appears when a video is damaged is intentionally created like an abstract painting to form a single video. It is indeed similar to Nam June Paik distorting the television screen using magnets. Now that video media has become so familiar, anyone can use it if they want, but this work was produced in 1973.
By using methods such as stopping and stretching the video, which shoudl flow naturally, the artist reflects on the meaning of time and perception. ‘The Reflecting Pool’ (1977-9/1997) on the second floor of the K1 exhibition hall is an early work of Viola that is considered critically important in this regard. This video is based on Viola’s experience of almost drowning when she was six years old.
First, in the video, a man (Viola) appears from the forest, walks to a pond and jumps. The man stops while floating in the air, and waves appear in the pond below.The man in the air slowly disappears, and 7 minutes later, a wet Viola appears and disappears into the forest on foot. Simply put, only the scene where the man falls into the water and struggles has been deleted.
In an interview when she was alive, Viola said this about her experience when she fell into the water:
“I immediately sank entirely to the bottom, and in a state of weightlessness, I had a visual experience I would never forget. It was blue, light, and dream-like and so beautiful that I thought I was in heaven. And my uncle pulled me
In the video, the scene where the man is frozen in the air metaphorically expresses the surreal experience of this time.this exhibition mainly focuses on early experimental forms. Until January 26th of next year.
Reporter Kim Min [email protected]