Bill Viola’s Martyrs: Sleek, Glamorous, Empty

NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
By Simon Willis

A view of Bill Viola’s video installation Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) on display at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London

UNITED KINGDOM---Martyrs, a new work by the American video artist Bill Viola, is difficult to take as seriously as it takes itself. It is being shown as a permanent exhibit in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, just a few feet from the high altar, and is designed as a kind of altarpiece. The difference between Viola’s installation and these other memorials is that Martyrs is not about any particular people who died for any particular cause. As images of martyrdom they are rather limp and risk-free. The effect is that the videos—when compared with many other depictions of martyrdom both old and new—are one-dimensional. [link]

Read More

Art Review: Bill Viola's "Marytrs" on Fire For God or Just on Fire?

WORLD DAILY NEWS
By Marisa Martin

"Martyrs" at St. Paul's Cathedral London by Bill Viola

UNITED KINGDOM---Martyrs are finally getting a little press with new art at London’s storied St Paul’s Cathedral – just not explicitly Christian martyrs, nor are they “honored” exactly … but they do use the word “Martyrs” in the title, and that’s a start! American media artist Bill Viola just installed a permanent video quadriptych on the theme of “martyrdom” for the magnificent (1708) structure, which is the locus of all things officially Christian in Britain. Unfortunately the video is barren of any Christian content, not one of the unfortunates so savaged wears even a miniscule cross. Perhaps I’m being petty, and the lack of any specific faith is an appeal against the martyrdom, universally. [link]

Read More

Bill Viola Projects Martyrs Within St. Paul's Cathedral, London

DESIGN BOOM
By Nina Azzerello

"Martyrs (earth, air, fire, water)," 2014 installation view at st paul’s cathedral. photo by peter mallet

UNITED KINGDOM---american artist bill viola‘s permanent video installation can be seen within the cavernous st paul’s cathedral in london. ‘martyrs (earth, air, fire, water)’ is the first moving-image artwork to be held in a british church on a long-term basis. four color vertical plasma screens are located behind the high altar of the cathedral in the south quire aisle, an area designated for contemplation and meditation. although installed in an anglican cathedral, the works engage with a multi-national audience, keeping with a spiritual environment that attracts millions of people of all faiths. [link]

Read More

Around the Art World in Six Minutes: Artnet's Profile of Bill Viola

ARTNET NEWS
By Alexander Forbes

Bill Viola, The Martyr (2014) Photo: TV Lab via Facebook

Profile: “I saw this blue glow on the screen before the actual image came up, something in my brain said I’d be doing this all my life,” says eminent video artist Bill Viola about the first time he turned on a video camera in Nicholas Wroe’s excellent look back at the artist’s career in the Guardian. Published to coincide with the unveiling of Viola’s long-term installation Martyrs (2014) at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London last week. [link]

Read More

RELIGIOUS ART | NEWS OF WEEK

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

Why do we memorialize? A new altarpiece for St Paul’s Cathedral in London is a video quadriptych of unnamed figures engulfed in flames, doused in water, buried by soil and strung up by the ankles. Installed during a week when death felt close at hand, this digital work "Martyr's" (above) by Bill Viola is my NEWS OF WEEK. Critics predict Viola's universal work will change the future of religious art. During this week, when a family member passed away; 3 shot dead at a Jewish Museum of Belgium; 7 killed in a rampage in California; and a museum opened for 2,977 who died in NYC; we ask, how should art memorialize?

In other religious art news from across the USA, and around the world:

• Buddhist Art of Week: Korea's iron Buddha gets NYC star status at home [More News]
• Christian Art of Week: El Paso Museum of Art announces retablo exhibition [More News]
• Hindu Art of Week: Houston's Asia Society exhibit spotlights Hindu deities [More News]
• Islamic Art of Week: New art by Negar Ahkami at Jen Bekmann's 20x200 [More News]
• Judaic Art of Week: Gifts of Jewish art from the Jewish heartland [More News]
• Interfaith Art News: Deadline for Butler University's Religion, Spirituality and the Arts

Join the journey. We are all members of one spiritual family united in the search for human meaning through art from the religious imagination. For us, it's more than Art. It's Religion. We follow artists who explore religious ideas with their creativity. When you follow religious artists, you join others who do the same. Some of us join as "Collectors" and make policy decisions; others join as "Friends" who gather for the dialogues; and most of us join as "Subscribers" to this "free" weekly newsletter; (or follow on: Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or Soundcloud).

Read More

Stained Glass for the 21st Century: St Paul’s Installs Plasma Screen Art

THE TELEGRAPH
By John Bingham

Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), a new large-scale video installation
by artist Bill Viola for St Paul's Cathedral (JULIAN SIMMONDS)

UNITED KINGDOM--- It is being viewed as a 21st century answer to the medieval stained glass masterpieces or renaissance frescoes depicting vivid Biblical scenes of suffering and death. St Paul’s Cathedral in London has become the first church in Britain to introduce a permanent a video art installation – complete with hints of bondage and waterboarding. Martyrs, by the American artist Bill Viola, is made up of four plasma screens installed next to the High Altar in Sir Christopher Wren’s church. The panels, arranged like a traditional altarpiece, simultaneously show four seven minute-films, in which the martyrs are subjected to torture and death through the elements: earth, air, fire and water. [link]

Read More

Bill Viola Video Installation Finds Permanent Home at St. Paul's Cathedral

BOSTON GLOBE

Detail of Bill Viola's Martyrs (2014). Courtesy of The Guardian

UNITED KINGDOM---St. Paul's Cathedral in London is playing host to a strikingly modern altar piece—American artist, Bill Viola's video installation called 'Martyrs'. [Video]

Read More

Video of Bill Viola on his Commission for St Paul's Cathedral

THE TELEGRAPH
Video by Heathcliff O'Malley

Scenes from Bill Viola's video altarpiece which will be installed at St Paul's Cathedral

UNITED KINGDOM---A few years ago, the American artist Bill Viola got a mental block about the Virgin Mary. This is a big moment in the history of religious art. Over the last two millennia, tens – even hundreds – of thousands of religious paintings have been placed on the altars of the world in numerous different media. But this is the first time that moving images will take a prominent place in one of the great cathedrals of Christendom. He conceived the altarpiece dedicated to Mary to be about earth and birth, the other work is dedicated to The Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire Water), is about death, release and ascension. [link]

Read More

Bill Viola: Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), St Paul’s Cathedral, Review: 'Sanitised'

THE TELEGRAPH
By Mark Hudson

"Water Martyr" by Bill Viola

UNITED KINGDOM---Bill Viola's video piece for St Paul's Cathedral seems to be striving for profundity, but the end result feels curiously lifeless. We expect a degree of gravitas in a work presented in a church. Yet if the dark backgrounds recall the chiaroscuro of baroque religious painting, the lighting resembles a car advert. The weightiness of the imagery is presented as self-evident, but the end result is rather flat and ponderous. I feel reluctant to pour cold water on a project that attempts to renew the tradition of churches as places of artistic wonder. The piece didn’t resonate for me, but I hope I’m in a minority of one. [link]

Read More

Hallelujah! Why Bill Viola's Martyrs Altarpiece at St Paul's is to Die For

THE GUARDIAN
By Jonathon Jones

Martyrs by Bill Viola at St Paul's in London

UNITED KINGDOM---Bill Viola has created a powerful modern altarpiece for St Paul's Cathedral that perfectly suits the restrained spirituality of this most English of churches. Coming into Christopher Wren's great building on a weekday morning when crowded buses surround this London icon, you notice how ascetic its atmosphere is. Greek mosaics and the perfect geometry of a dome that suggests the clockwork universe of Wren's contemporary Isaac Newton make St Paul's a place of cool, even philosophical, prayer. At least, they were until American visionary Viola unveiled his latest work, a permanent video installation, there on Tuesday. [link]

Earth … Martyrs by Bill Viola

Read More

Naomi Polonsky Considers the Influence of Visual Artist Bill Viola

INDEPENDENT CHERWELL
By Naomi Polonsky

UNITED KINGDOM---Leonardo da Vinci spent years of his life obsessively studying the structure of the eye, and the difference between monocular and binocular vision. He questioned the way in which artists depict three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Ever since the Renaissance, artists following in Leo’s footsteps have examined the subjectivity of the human visual process and its effect on art practice. One artist who has revolutionised the way in which art deals with perception is Bill Viola. Over the last four decades Viola has experimented with videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances and flat panel video pieces. Indeed, many consider him to be the father of video art. [link]

Read More

Bill Viola’s Art is a Religious Experience

FINANCIAL TIMES
By Rachel Spence

UNITED KINGDOM---Most people remember the first time they see a video by Bill Viola. In a world where so many artists are concerned with what Robert Hughes once witheringly described as the “infra-mince” – matters of such frail import they are barely worth discussing – the US video artist’s only themes are the big ones: birth, death, love, anger, ecstasy, suffering, fear. His mission is to explore what it means to be human, present in the world yet conscious that the minutes are ticking towards the void. Viola’s vision should chime with that of the Italian masters is no coincidence. Nor that, in two weeks, St Paul’s Cathedral in London will unveil “Martyrs”. The four-screen video by Viola will be the first moving-image work of art to be permanently installed in a British cathedral. (A second Viola installation, entitled “Mary”, is also planned.) [link]

Read More

Bill Viola Unveils Major New Installation At St Paul's Cathedral

ARTLYST

Martyrs is located behind the High Altar of the Cathedral next to the American Memorial Chapel

UNITED KINGDOM---Bill Viola has unveiled a major new installation At St Paul's Cathedral in London. Martyrs, has taken ten years to realise and is the first of two large-scale permanent video installations created by this internationally acclaimed artist. The was inaugurated in St Paul’s Cathedral on 21 May 2014. The installation is the first moving-image artwork to be installed in a British cathedral or church on a long-term basis. Martyrs, is joined in 2015 by a second piece entitled Mary, which the artist has conceived as a companion work. Although installed in an Anglican cathedral, the works will engage with a multi-national, multi-denominational audience, in keeping with a spiritual environment that attracts millions of people of all faiths. [link]

Read More