Bill Viola/Michelangelo Life Death Rebirth, Royal Academy, London, February 2019; 7/10


This show makes some dramatic claims:


But naturally these are almost entirely puffery.

Here then we have drawings by Michelangelo, merely glanced at by the visitors, contrasted with Viola's enormous video installations that entranced them.

It seems like at some time in the past our Royal Family scooped up a collection of second rate Michelangelo’s which are now endlessly paraded for our gawping. They all seem to be sketches for larger works and the hands, faces and feet are often unfinished. Generally they are pretty blurry as if they had once been bundled up and have rubbed together.   One label admits that “another hand” has firmed up the outlines of the work. In some of the master's drawings the proportions are poor.

So 3/10 for Michelangelo.

What of his presumptuous  rival?  I have seen the Nantes Triptych and Five Angels for the Millenium before - the quality of the images isn’t as sharp as I remembered and, whilst I'm happy with the idea that video art demands time, these are tedious.  Furthermore, what is the central image of the Nantes Triptych supposed to be saying? Some works are very arresting e.g. The Messenger, The Reflecting Pool and Man searching for Immortality/Woman Searching for Eternity some are not e.g. The Sleep of Reason and The Veiling.  I very much enjoyed Tristan and Isolde particularly as I was starting to think of Viola as a one trick pony i.e. that reversed images of people jumping into water were his sole successful idea, but here, for Isolde, at least, fire has replaced water. 

Overall too great a preponderance of people diving into water but still 7/10.



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