Voom Portraits by Robert Wilson Opens Next Week in Valladolid

Written by rubin Tuesday, 24 March 2009 08:00

Valladolid, Spain - Valladolid will present "VOOM Portraits," an exhibition of video portraits by the celebrated theater director and artist Robert Wilson, on view from April 2 through May 31. Wilson collaborates with his human subjects to develop costumes and settings that hark back to past works of art, history or popular culture. The exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery will include a large portrait of Winona Ryder as Winnie, the main female character in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. The exhibition is in cooperation with "VOOM Portraits - Robert Wilson”.

Robert Wilson's new portraits are staged tableaux of artists, musicians, actors and other personalities, presented on high-definition flat screens. The sitters are captured in near-motionless poses, instructed by Wilson to "think of nothing" and limit their gestures to one or two movements in very slow motion. Wilson's new portraits also include a series of animals: Briard dogs, South American horned frogs, black panthers, snow owls and porcupines, all captured in near immobility. The portraits manifest Wilson's acclaimed sense of color and light, and draw upon his interests in theater, design, music, cinema and performance. The gallery will also present an installation of snow owl portraits, which Wilson filmed in front of a vibrant polka-dotted background.

Wilson describes the portraits, "I think these works can be seen in numerous ways. They can be seen in museum spaces. They can be seen in subway stops. They can be seen in places where people are queuing in airports. They could be on the face of a wristwatch. They could be on TV. They could be an image in your home. They can be hanging on a wall. They could be in a fireplace - the way we have a fire. On a wall at home, they can be like a window - a window that shows us another world. It's something very personal. It's a document of our time. They are what I cali portraits."

These portraits of people and animals are presented on large-scale HD plasma flat-screens, and include celebrities like Johnny Depp, Isabella Rossellini, and Brad Pitt, as well as a horned frog, snow owl, panting dog. In addition, each work is accompanied by an original musical score. These works are part of a larger series, totaling 153 unique artworks, which comprise the VOOM Portrait series.

The project was commissioned and produced by VOOM HD Networks, which also provided the HD screens for this exhibition. VOOM is a pioneer in high definition televisión, offering a collection of 15 commercial-free HD channels, available nationally on the DISH satellite network. Among these is Gallery HD, a channel entirely devoted to the arts. In recent months, the company has also begun to launch HD channels internationally. In 2004, VOOM named Robert Wilson an Artist-in-Residence to develop a project which would showcase the aesthetic and technical brilliance of the emerging HDTV medium. VOOM PORTRAITS are the results of Wilson's creative endeavors in this médium to date.

The HD technology communicates Wilson's poetic ideas in high-definition state-of-the-art clarity. Producing each portrait takes months of development and the process includes set design, lighting, makeup and costumes. The dramatic and theatrical settings recall art history, popular culture, and are illustrated in stunning color.

An element of surprise is incorporated in each work with the use of movement. The subjects of these portraits are limited to one or two gestures—such as a blink or tap of the foot—that are delivered in a very controlled motion. On first glance, the viewer sees a static image, and a sudden movement in the picture turns the viewing experience into something completely different.

The last layer to Wilson's work is sound. Each work features an individual soundtrack from musicians including Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Bernard Hermann, Michael Galasso, and Big Black. The music is innovative and serves as another way these "still lives" become "real lives."

The underlying themes of Wilson's environments are often based upon theater and art history, adding a layer of poignancy to the portraits. In the case of the celebrity images, the juxtaposition of the star with the memory of a character in a play or historical figure creates clever and humorous vignettes that delve into the viewer's memory, addressing the role of fame and vanity in the context of contemporary culture. For example, the portrait of Johnny Depp shows the actor dressed in drag and posing as Marcel Duchamp's Rrose Sélavy. The portrait of Winona Ryder casts her as the character of Winnie from Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, silently envisioning the events of the play from sunrise to sunset.

These groundbreaking video portraits stand alone as a unique art form and illustrate Wilson's broad experience and skills as a seasoned artist. The portraits are a departure from contemporary photography and video art in that they are an intimate, alive, and engaging environment for the viewer. When asked about the ideas behind the images, Wilson states "They are personal, poetic statements of different personalities."

About Robert Wilson
An internationally acclaimed theatre icon of the world stage, Wilson's oeuvre spans from the ground-breaking Philip Glass opera, Einstein on the Beach (1976) and hip musical The Black Rider (William S. Burroughs and Tom Waits) to classic works of Shakespeare and Wagner operas. In addition to being an avant-garde stage director and playwright, Wilson has experience working as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video artist, and sound and lighting designer. Beginning in 2004, Wilson began working as an artist-in-residence for VOOM HD. Known for his theatrical productions, Wilson's use of HD technology has taken his skills of manipulating light and creating dramatic environments to the next level by creating works that are a cross between photography, film, literature and sound.

Robert Wilson's work has been exhibited at museums internationally, including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; with retrospectives at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Golden Lion award for sculpture at the 1993 Venice Biennale, first prize at the Biennial Internacional de São Paolo, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for lifetime achievement. Robert Wilson

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