Rome, Bill Viola's Icons of Light exhibition at Palazzo Bonaparte.

BILL VIOLA. Icons of light is the title of an exhibition at the Palazzo Bonaparte that, through June 26, pays tribute to the greatest artist in video art: Bill Viola. In the halls that were once the home of Madama Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte, Napoleon’s mother, visitors will be able to see Viola’s works, including masterpieces such as Ascension (2000) and the celebrated Water Portraits (2015). The exhibition project, curated by Kira Perov, will feature 10 works by Bill Viola, and is intended to represent a moment of reflection on the conceptual hyperbole of the American artist who, for more than 40 years, has been making works that constantly address the life/death dichotomy and inextricably linked by contrasts between East and West.

The works in the exhibition are intended to represent an emblematic synthesis of Viola’s work, a temporal space that thus also portrays the historical development of video art itself: through the most well-known video installations and video projections, the retrospective narrates what can be defined as the artist’s most intimate and spiritual journeys through the electronic medium.

The exhibition was conceived as an “emotional journey,” the organizers explain, “in which the public will be able to access spaces with a muffled atmosphere reminiscent of places of deep intimacy, almost shrines of one’s memory, a visionary worship space where the visitor is invited to establish a deep visual and spiritual connection with the artwork.”

BILL VIOLA. Icons of light is produced and organized by Arthemisia with the collaboration of the Bill Viola Studio. The exhibition is sponsored by Generali Valore Cultura and is recommended by Sky Arte. Catalog published by Skira, with an essay by Valentino Catricalà.

For all information, you can visit the official website of Palazzo Bonaparte.

Pictured: Bill Viola, Water Martyr (2014), Martyrs series, detail.

Rome, Bill Viola's Icons of Light exhibition at Palazzo Bonaparte.

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