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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