Bill Viola,
Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979, 1979. Courtesy of Bill
Viola Studio. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle. ©Kukje
GalleryKukje Gallery presents “Moving Stillness”,
a solo exhibition of work by Bill Viola through January 26, 2025, in the
gallery’s Seoul K1 and K3. The first exhibition devoted to Viola in Korea since
his passing this past summer, it brings together a wide range of works to
celebrate his incredible life and art practice.
Born in New York in 1951, Bill Viola was a
seminal figure in the founding and development of video art. Widely recognized
for his powerful installations, Viola used video technology to explore modes of
perception, cognition, and the pursuit of self-knowledge.
Characterized by moving imagery grounded in
spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian
mysticism, his unique aesthetic embodies a poignant sense of inner vision
highlighting his profound humanism.
Bill Viola,
Information, 1973. Courtesy of Bill Viola Studio. Photo: Kira
Perov. ©Kukje GalleryAnchoring the exhibition is Moving
Stillness: Mount Rainier 1979 (1979), installed in K3. This powerful
installation depicts the mountain being reflected in a pool of water via a rear
projection screen, which causes the image of Mount Rainier to be dependent on
the state of the water’s surface.
In experiencing the distorted image of the
mountain created by Viola, viewers confront a poetic illustration of time and
the illusion of stability, while also experiencing a work of tremendous beauty
and calm.
In K1, viewers can explore the artist's early
videotape works, including Interval, created for the U.S.
Pavilion exhibition at the 46th Venice Biennale.
Bill Viola,
Poem B (The Guest House), 2006. Courtesy of Bill Viola
Studio. Photo: Peter Mallet. ©Kukje
GalleryOf Moving
Stillness, Viola has said, “the apparent solid, constant character of
the image of the mountain is only due to a moment-to-moment coincidence of a
set of factors, each independent and minutely variable.”
In this
journey of finding our balance among the infinite variables of our
surroundings, it is through this exhibition that we invite our audience to come
and contemplate their own constants in life.
Ji Yeon Lee has been working as an editor for the media art and culture channel AliceOn since 2021 and worked as an exhibition coordinator at samuso (now Space for Contemporary Art) from 2021 to 2023.
