Exhibition at James Cohan centers upon Bill Viola's large-scale video installation 'The Raft'
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, November 12, 2024


Exhibition at James Cohan centers upon Bill Viola's large-scale video installation 'The Raft'
Bill Viola, he Raft, May 2004. Color high-definition video projection on wall in a darkened space; 5.1 channels of surround sound. Room dimensions: 29 ft 6 in. x 23 ft x 13 ft (9 x 7 x 3.96 m). Duration: 10:33 minutes. Performers: Sheryl Arenson, Robin Bonaccorsi, Rocky Capella, Cathy Chang, Liisa Cohen, Tad Coughenour, James Ford, Michael Irby, Simon Karimian, John Kim, Tanya Little, Mike Martinez, Petro Martirosian, Jeff Mosley, Gladys Peters, Maria Victoria, Kaye Wade, Kim Weild, Ellis Williams. Edition of 3.



NEW YORK, NY.- James Cohan presents The Raft, an exhibition of video works by the groundbreaking artist Bill Viola, on view at 291 Grand Street from November 9 through December 21, 2024. This is the late artist’s ninth solo exhibition at James Cohan.

Bill Viola (1951-2024) was a pioneer in the fields of new media, video, and installation art. For over 50 years his visionary environments, defined by immersive video and soundscapes, focused on the fundamental human experiences of birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness. Viola also drew great inspiration from spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. By slowing down his images, Viola shifted viewers’ sense of perception and awareness to reveal the inner world.

This exhibition is centered upon Viola’s large-scale video installation, The Raft, May 2004, commissioned for the 2004 Athens Olympics, and exhibited for the first time in New York. The Raft depicts a life-sized scale of a group of nineteen men and women from a variety of ethnic and economic backgrounds, casually standing together. Suddenly, they are struck by strong blasts of water that rush in from out of frame. Some are immediately knocked over and others brace themselves against the unprovoked deluge. Bodies are pummeled and faces and limbs contort in agony against the cold, hard force. People in the group cling to each other for survival, as the simple act of remaining upright becomes an intense physical struggle.

Then, as suddenly as it arrived, the water stops, leaving behind a band of suffering, bewildered, and battered individuals. The group slowly recovers as some regain their senses, others weep, while the few with any strength assist those who have fallen. The viewer experiences this event in an immersive setting, standing in a darkened room and surrounded by the roaring sounds of the water. Captured in slow-motion, The Raft arouses a visceral experience of calamity and shared humanity, provoking a consideration of the range of responses to crisis and the resilience to be found in community.

The exhibition also features Traveling on Foot, 2012, one of five works from Viola’s Mirage series of desert-based meditations on existence. In this video installation, two figures are captured in slow motion, walking closely together, across a stretch of the Mojave Desert towards the camera, with no end in sight. The desert, for Viola, acts as a mirror of the mind. The vast, harsh, arid landscape has the ability of producing mirages, which Viola terms as early as 1979 as “hallucinations of landscape”—the experience, he notes, “of being in someone else’s dream.” Traveling on Foot investigates the limits of our understanding of the position of the human in the natural order, both physically and metaphysically.

Coming of age alongside the development of video, Viola experimented with the new technologies to explore the furthest reaches of the expressive possibilities of this new medium. He once said, “I gradually realized that the act of perception was in fact a viable form of knowledge in and of itself, and not merely a kind of phenomenon. This meant that when I held the video camera and microphone, I was holding a philosophical system, not just some image and sound gathering tool.”










Today's News

November 9, 2024

Exhibition spotlights the transformative possibilities of color, form, and motion

Abstract artist exhibits paintings in Tubac, AZ art gallery

Almine Rech New York opens Javier Calleja's fourth solo exhibition with the gallery

Berlinische Galerie opens an exhibition of photographs by the Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra

Exhibition features new and recent bronze sculptures by Tom Sachs

Guggenheim unveils new visual identity uniting its global constellation of museums

Kunsthalle Bremen unveils comprehensive Ernst Ludwig Kirchner woodcut exhibition featuring contemporary artists

First exhibition to examine the intertwined histories of American sculpture and race opens in DC

Monumental Yayoi Kusama Dancing Pumpkin sculpture unveiled ahead of exhibition

Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden opens a group exhibition inspired by Etel Adnan's book 'Sea and Fog'

MoMA will present Christian Marclay's 'The Clock' for the first time in over a decade

Ludwig Museum opens an exhibition of works by Wolfgang Hahn Prize 2024 winner Anna Boghiguian

Sotheby's inaugural auction in Saudi Arabia to take place in Diriyah in February 2025

Exhibition at James Cohan centers upon Bill Viola's large-scale video installation 'The Raft'

Kaveri Raina opens first solo exhibition at Casey Kaplan

Gagosian exhibits works by Jeff Wall in New York

Kunstmuseum Luzern opens an exhibition of works by Maya Dunietz

Rarely-seen Dutch Impressionist works from private collections on view at Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art

Kent State University Museum partners with student organization to advance its mission

Walead Beshty's fifth solo exhibition with Regen Projects opens in Los Angeles




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful