Bill Viola’s decades-spanning video art show in Guangzhou a spiritual pleasure that freezes the viewer to the spot
Giant screens at Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art play 24 of American video artist’s works that stretch time and emotions; while not a retrospective, they cover 66-year-old’s output from 1977 to 2014
You cannot get a more secular venue than a Soviet-style former canning factory that used to churn out the deliciously pungent Guangdong staple of fried dace and black beans. Yet, oddly, the 1950s industrial cluster in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is somehow a fitting place to contemplate American artist Bill Viola’s spiritual images.
In 2009, the former Yingjinqian Canned Food Factory was turned into the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art as the city government converted the industrial area in which it stands in the style of Beijing’s 798 Art District and Shenzhen’s OCT-Loft.
It lacks the magnificence of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where Viola’s “Martyrs” series was permanently installed in 2014. And it lacks the grandeur of the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain or the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy, settings for Viola’s other solo exhibitions this year. But the recurring themes in his videos find special resonance at the former factory – regeneration, ablution (there’s not a hint of fish left now) and his signature slow-motion videos a dramatic contrast to the breakneck development beyond the museum walls.
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Viola, who is 66, suffers from ill health and could not make it to Guangzhou. Last month, his wife and collaborator, Kira Perov, came over to supervise the installation of 24 videos across four buildings together with David Elliott, the well-regarded British curator and writer who has joined the Redtory Museum as an adviser and senior curator.