Going Forth By Day @ Bill Viola. 2002
Going Forth By Day is a five-part projected digital-image cycle that explores themes of human existence: individuality, society, death, rebirth. The work is experienced architecturally, with all five image sequences playing simultaneously in one large gallery. To enter the space, visitors must literally step into the light of the first image. Once inside, they stand at the center of an image-sound world with projections on every wall. The story told by each panel is embedded within the larger narrative cycle of the room. Viewers are free to move around the space to watch each image panel individually or to stand back and experience the piece as a whole.
The five image sequences are each approximately thirty-five minutes in length and play in synchronization on a continuous loop. Sound from each panel mixes freely in the space, creating an overall acoustic ambience. The images are projected directly onto the walls-without screens or framed supports-as in Italian Renaissance frescoes, where the paint was applied directly into the plaster surface of the walls. The title of the work derives from a literal translation of the title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, "The Book of Going Forth by Day"-a guide for the soul once it is freed from the darkness of the body to finally "go forth by the light of day." Bill Viola
A human form emerges from a dim submerged world. The body swims in the fluid of an unconscious state between death and rebirth. Orange rays of light penetrate the surface of the water, coming from the previous world, which ended in fire. Now, illuminated by the light of prior destruction, the human essence searches for a way through this new underwater realm. It seeks the material form and substance necessary for its rebirth.
It is the time of the summer solstice high in the mountains. The early morning light reveals a steady stream of people moving along a path through the forest. They come from all walks of life, each traveling at their own pace in their own unique way. There is no beginning or end to the procession of individuals-they have been walking long before we see them here, and they will be walking long after they leave our view. The constant flow of people suggests no apparent order or sequence. As travelers on the road, they move in an intermediate space between two worlds. A small marker in the forest grants them safe passage through this vulnerable state. There is no going back. They move constantly forward, driven toward an unknown destination.
A stone building, newly restored, stands in the clear light of the autumnal equinox. People move along the street immersed in the flow of everyday events. Small incidents play out, affecting individual lives. Families are leaving their homes, people on the street are carrying personal possessions, and all actions become colored by an increasing tension in the community. Moments of compassion and kindness circulate within a mounting concern for individual survival. When a warning is sounded for all to hear, a final moment of panic ensues on the street as individuals rush to save themselves. The last ones, in denial of the inevitable, have waited too long in the security of their own homes. Now they must run for their lives as the deluge strikes with full force at the very heart of their private world.
It is late afternoon at the time of the winter solstice. A small house stands on a hill overlooking the inland sea. Inside, an old man lies ill on a bed, attended by his son and daughter-in-law. Outside, another man sits by the door keeping vigil. Down by the shore, a boat is slowly being loaded with the personal possessions from the dying man's home. An old woman waits patiently nearby. After some time, the son and daughter-in-law must depart, leaving the old man alone with his dreams and fading breath. His house, container of lives and memories, is closed and locked. Soon after, the old man reappears on the shore and is greeted by his wife, who has been waiting for his arrival. They board the boat that is to carry them to the Isles of the Blessed.
It is dawn on the morning of the vernal equinox. A team of rescue workers has been laboring all night to save people caught in a massive flash flood in the desert. Exhausted and physically drained, they slowly pack up their equipment as the dawn light gradually builds and the emotional impact of the night's events deepens. A woman stands on the shore, looking off into the flooded valley where her friends and neighbors once lived. She silently waits, filled with fear and fading hope for the fate of a loved one, her son, who will never return.
BILL VIOLA: GOING FORTH BY DAY
February 9 to May 5, 2002
From February 9 until May 5, 2002, the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin is presenting Bill Viola: Going Forth By Day, a newly commissioned installation transforming the Deutsche Guggenheim gallery space on Unter den Linden. Bill Viola, one of the leading contemporary artists, has been a pioneer in the use of video and exploration of the moving image, creating single channel works, installations, and a range of works that reflect his deep engagement with art history, spirituality, and conceptual as well as perceptual issues.
In his new commission created especially for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Viola references fresco painting to create a powerful five-projection-based installation that examines cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. Each ìpanelî ñ a projection seen directly on the walls of the space ñ is 35 minutes in length and was recorded in state-of-the-art digital High-Definition video. Together, the five panels, “Fire Birth” “The Path” ”The Deluge” “The Voyage” and “First Light” create an unparalleled visual and aural experience and reflect powerful spiritual and mythological concepts of renewal. Entering the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin gallery, the viewer will first come upon a darkened space devoid of art, with a wall and doorway that lead into the partitioned main space. In this gallery space, five projected image panels convey the fresco cycle, a suite of works that serves to create an epic articulation of the passage of natureís cycles and offers mythic reflections on the temporal flow of birth and regeneration.
As the viewer passes through the entryway, he/she will at the same time be walking through “Fire Birth” a large image of a body submerged in flaming red water, an allusion to the world ending in fire and beginning in water. On the left wall of the gallery, the panel “The Path” is projected, a long, panoramic moving image of individuals walking through a wooded environment; a flow of humanity engaged in a never ending journey. The facing wall features the panel “The Deluge” which depicts the façade of a building with people fleeing a deluge of water that bursts out of the building. On the right gallery wall is the panel “The Voyage” which suggests a narrative of passage, as a dying old man in a house overlooking a large body of water, has a boat prepared to depart for the far shore. The final panel, “First Light” shows a landscape at dawn with a group of rescue workers exhausted, who worked to save lives after a catastrophe, who finally succumb to sleep, a man silently rises out from the water into the heavens.
Violaís new installation is a highly complex project which involved the use of a variety of locations for recording, an extremely high level of cinematic production values, and the technical expertise needed to create the individual panels with sophisticated digital processing and post-production editing. The resulting installation reflects Violaís creation of a fully realized image world, an associative narrative conveyed through the panels, each functioning as a narrative element within an epic whole.
Bill Viola studied at Syracuse University in New York state in the early 1970s, where his exploration with electronic arts led him to produce works of sound art as well as video installation. His early contact with Nam June Paik, David Tudor, and other influential sound and video artists encouraged him to continue working with video, and he went on to create numerous single channel works and installations both in the US and abroad. He has been featured in single-artist and group exhibitions internationally, represented the U.S. in the 1995 Venice Biennale, and from 1997-2000 was the subject of a major touring retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Bill Viola: Going Forth By Day continues the series of exhibitions commissioned for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. This exhibition follows Rachel Whitereadís hauntingly beautiful sculptural installations and Hiroshi Sugimotoís masterful series of waxwork photographs.
Organizers of the exhibition are John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, with Maria-Christina VillaseÒor, Associate Curator of Film and Media Arts, both at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. A special artist's book will be produced for the opening of the exhibition with excerpts from Viola's notebook detailing the artist's conceptual process and the development of the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin commission Going Forth By Day at a price of € 2 5 .
T h i s p u b l i c a t i o n w i l l b e f o l l o w e d b y a f u l l - c o l o r c a t a l o g u e t h a t i n c l u d e s e x t e n s i v e i l l u s t r a t i o n s o f t h e f i v e p a n e l s t h a t m a k e u p G o i n g F o r t h B y D a y a t a p r i c e o f € 3 3 . B o t h c a t a l o g u e s , d e s i g n e d b y R e b e c a M en d e z , w i l l b e p r o d u c e d i n b i l i n g u a l G e r m a n / English editions and will feature an extended conversation between Bill Viola and exhibition curator John G. Hanhardt that explores the artist's influences, thematics, and working methods.
In an Artistís Talk on Sunday, February 10, 5 p.m. at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Bill Viola will discuss his latest work Going Forth By Day with John G. Hanhardt.
Like Bill Viola, the choreographer and dancer Cesc Gelabert deals with a cyclic journey through time in his new solo project “Preludis” The performance may be seen at the Hebbel-Theater, Berlin from February 13 to 15, at 8 p.m. At Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin the Barcelona-based artist Gelabert speaks with Johannes Odenthal, director of music theater dance at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt about his new project. The discussion is a collaboration with the Hebbel-Theater, Berlin.
Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin invites both adults and children to visit the Familiy Brunch on Sunday, March 3, 2002, at 11.30 a.m.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2002, at 7 p.m., Rolf Lauter will present the lecture Bill Viola: About the Myth of Being. Visual Worlds Between Timeless Space and Spaceless Time. He is curator at the Museum f¸r Moderne Kunst Frankfurt and co-ordinated in 1999 the presentation of the Bill Viola Retrospective by New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in Frankfurt am Main.
Press Conference: Friday, February 8, 2002, 11 a.m. Press Information Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin Svenja Simon/ Sara Bernshausen
Unter den Linden 13-15
D-10117 Berlin
Phone +49-30-202093-14
Fax +49-30-202093-20
E-mail: berlin.guggenheim@db.com
Photo-material: www.photo-files.de/guggenheim
The five image sequences are each approximately thirty-five minutes in length and play in synchronization on a continuous loop. Sound from each panel mixes freely in the space, creating an overall acoustic ambience. The images are projected directly onto the walls-without screens or framed supports-as in Italian Renaissance frescoes, where the paint was applied directly into the plaster surface of the walls. The title of the work derives from a literal translation of the title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, "The Book of Going Forth by Day"-a guide for the soul once it is freed from the darkness of the body to finally "go forth by the light of day." Bill Viola
A human form emerges from a dim submerged world. The body swims in the fluid of an unconscious state between death and rebirth. Orange rays of light penetrate the surface of the water, coming from the previous world, which ended in fire. Now, illuminated by the light of prior destruction, the human essence searches for a way through this new underwater realm. It seeks the material form and substance necessary for its rebirth.
It is the time of the summer solstice high in the mountains. The early morning light reveals a steady stream of people moving along a path through the forest. They come from all walks of life, each traveling at their own pace in their own unique way. There is no beginning or end to the procession of individuals-they have been walking long before we see them here, and they will be walking long after they leave our view. The constant flow of people suggests no apparent order or sequence. As travelers on the road, they move in an intermediate space between two worlds. A small marker in the forest grants them safe passage through this vulnerable state. There is no going back. They move constantly forward, driven toward an unknown destination.
A stone building, newly restored, stands in the clear light of the autumnal equinox. People move along the street immersed in the flow of everyday events. Small incidents play out, affecting individual lives. Families are leaving their homes, people on the street are carrying personal possessions, and all actions become colored by an increasing tension in the community. Moments of compassion and kindness circulate within a mounting concern for individual survival. When a warning is sounded for all to hear, a final moment of panic ensues on the street as individuals rush to save themselves. The last ones, in denial of the inevitable, have waited too long in the security of their own homes. Now they must run for their lives as the deluge strikes with full force at the very heart of their private world.
It is late afternoon at the time of the winter solstice. A small house stands on a hill overlooking the inland sea. Inside, an old man lies ill on a bed, attended by his son and daughter-in-law. Outside, another man sits by the door keeping vigil. Down by the shore, a boat is slowly being loaded with the personal possessions from the dying man's home. An old woman waits patiently nearby. After some time, the son and daughter-in-law must depart, leaving the old man alone with his dreams and fading breath. His house, container of lives and memories, is closed and locked. Soon after, the old man reappears on the shore and is greeted by his wife, who has been waiting for his arrival. They board the boat that is to carry them to the Isles of the Blessed.
It is dawn on the morning of the vernal equinox. A team of rescue workers has been laboring all night to save people caught in a massive flash flood in the desert. Exhausted and physically drained, they slowly pack up their equipment as the dawn light gradually builds and the emotional impact of the night's events deepens. A woman stands on the shore, looking off into the flooded valley where her friends and neighbors once lived. She silently waits, filled with fear and fading hope for the fate of a loved one, her son, who will never return.
BILL VIOLA: GOING FORTH BY DAY
February 9 to May 5, 2002
From February 9 until May 5, 2002, the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin is presenting Bill Viola: Going Forth By Day, a newly commissioned installation transforming the Deutsche Guggenheim gallery space on Unter den Linden. Bill Viola, one of the leading contemporary artists, has been a pioneer in the use of video and exploration of the moving image, creating single channel works, installations, and a range of works that reflect his deep engagement with art history, spirituality, and conceptual as well as perceptual issues.
In his new commission created especially for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Viola references fresco painting to create a powerful five-projection-based installation that examines cycles of birth, death, and rebirth. Each ìpanelî ñ a projection seen directly on the walls of the space ñ is 35 minutes in length and was recorded in state-of-the-art digital High-Definition video. Together, the five panels, “Fire Birth” “The Path” ”The Deluge” “The Voyage” and “First Light” create an unparalleled visual and aural experience and reflect powerful spiritual and mythological concepts of renewal. Entering the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin gallery, the viewer will first come upon a darkened space devoid of art, with a wall and doorway that lead into the partitioned main space. In this gallery space, five projected image panels convey the fresco cycle, a suite of works that serves to create an epic articulation of the passage of natureís cycles and offers mythic reflections on the temporal flow of birth and regeneration.
As the viewer passes through the entryway, he/she will at the same time be walking through “Fire Birth” a large image of a body submerged in flaming red water, an allusion to the world ending in fire and beginning in water. On the left wall of the gallery, the panel “The Path” is projected, a long, panoramic moving image of individuals walking through a wooded environment; a flow of humanity engaged in a never ending journey. The facing wall features the panel “The Deluge” which depicts the façade of a building with people fleeing a deluge of water that bursts out of the building. On the right gallery wall is the panel “The Voyage” which suggests a narrative of passage, as a dying old man in a house overlooking a large body of water, has a boat prepared to depart for the far shore. The final panel, “First Light” shows a landscape at dawn with a group of rescue workers exhausted, who worked to save lives after a catastrophe, who finally succumb to sleep, a man silently rises out from the water into the heavens.
Violaís new installation is a highly complex project which involved the use of a variety of locations for recording, an extremely high level of cinematic production values, and the technical expertise needed to create the individual panels with sophisticated digital processing and post-production editing. The resulting installation reflects Violaís creation of a fully realized image world, an associative narrative conveyed through the panels, each functioning as a narrative element within an epic whole.
Bill Viola studied at Syracuse University in New York state in the early 1970s, where his exploration with electronic arts led him to produce works of sound art as well as video installation. His early contact with Nam June Paik, David Tudor, and other influential sound and video artists encouraged him to continue working with video, and he went on to create numerous single channel works and installations both in the US and abroad. He has been featured in single-artist and group exhibitions internationally, represented the U.S. in the 1995 Venice Biennale, and from 1997-2000 was the subject of a major touring retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Bill Viola: Going Forth By Day continues the series of exhibitions commissioned for the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. This exhibition follows Rachel Whitereadís hauntingly beautiful sculptural installations and Hiroshi Sugimotoís masterful series of waxwork photographs.
Organizers of the exhibition are John G. Hanhardt, Senior Curator of Film and Media Arts, with Maria-Christina VillaseÒor, Associate Curator of Film and Media Arts, both at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. A special artist's book will be produced for the opening of the exhibition with excerpts from Viola's notebook detailing the artist's conceptual process and the development of the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin commission Going Forth By Day at a price of € 2 5 .
T h i s p u b l i c a t i o n w i l l b e f o l l o w e d b y a f u l l - c o l o r c a t a l o g u e t h a t i n c l u d e s e x t e n s i v e i l l u s t r a t i o n s o f t h e f i v e p a n e l s t h a t m a k e u p G o i n g F o r t h B y D a y a t a p r i c e o f € 3 3 . B o t h c a t a l o g u e s , d e s i g n e d b y R e b e c a M en d e z , w i l l b e p r o d u c e d i n b i l i n g u a l G e r m a n / English editions and will feature an extended conversation between Bill Viola and exhibition curator John G. Hanhardt that explores the artist's influences, thematics, and working methods.
In an Artistís Talk on Sunday, February 10, 5 p.m. at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Bill Viola will discuss his latest work Going Forth By Day with John G. Hanhardt.
Like Bill Viola, the choreographer and dancer Cesc Gelabert deals with a cyclic journey through time in his new solo project “Preludis” The performance may be seen at the Hebbel-Theater, Berlin from February 13 to 15, at 8 p.m. At Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin the Barcelona-based artist Gelabert speaks with Johannes Odenthal, director of music theater dance at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt about his new project. The discussion is a collaboration with the Hebbel-Theater, Berlin.
Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin invites both adults and children to visit the Familiy Brunch on Sunday, March 3, 2002, at 11.30 a.m.
On Wednesday, March 13, 2002, at 7 p.m., Rolf Lauter will present the lecture Bill Viola: About the Myth of Being. Visual Worlds Between Timeless Space and Spaceless Time. He is curator at the Museum f¸r Moderne Kunst Frankfurt and co-ordinated in 1999 the presentation of the Bill Viola Retrospective by New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in Frankfurt am Main.
Press Conference: Friday, February 8, 2002, 11 a.m. Press Information Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin Svenja Simon/ Sara Bernshausen
Unter den Linden 13-15
D-10117 Berlin
Phone +49-30-202093-14
Fax +49-30-202093-20
E-mail: berlin.guggenheim@db.com
Photo-material: www.photo-files.de/guggenheim