Mary : Bill Viola

Charming video installation at St Pauls Cathedral by Bill Viola.

This is a permanent piece at the cathedral but as it’s still relatively new I feel I’m allowed to blog it! The piece is shown on a triptych of screens in the shape of an altarpiece with a larger section on the middle. The video is shown across the screens, either in sections or using the whole shape as one backdrop and tells the story of the life of the Virgin Mary.

It does help to know your iconography to interpret some of the scenes but once you work them out they are moving and all brought into the modern world. Most stunning though is the end sequence where Mary holds the dead Christ in a classic Pieta composition. From a distance this has the effect of an altarpiece but as you get close you realised Mary is gently moving and looking at every part of the Christ figure in a desperate and loving way.

Like Viola’s work “Martyrs” nearby I find this work mesmerising. It’s about 15 minutes long but the time passes so quickly. I found it slowed me down and made me really think about what I was looking at. I imagine this is the effect that Renaissance altarpiece had on their first viewers.

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