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Bill Viola - Icons of Light
25 January 2022

At Palazzo Bonaparte, which reopens after being closed for two years due to the pandemic, ten installations by Bill Viola, one of the most famous contemporary video artists, are on display from March 5 to June 26, 2022.

The exhibition "Icons of Light" presents a synthesis of the New York artist's work in the halls that were once the home of Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte, Napoleon's mother, in a "muffled and intimate atmosphere, inviting an intense visual and spiritual connection".
Among the retrospective's video installations and video projections are Ascension (2000) and the famous Water Portraits (2015).

Viola, an Italian-American born in 1951, is recognized as one of the most important contemporary artists. Pioneer of video art since the early '70s, musician, scholar of Islamic Sufism, Christian mysticism, Buddhism and Eastern philosophies, deeply influenced by the Renaissance, with his symbolic, metaphysical video installations of great sensory impact, he offers the viewer extraordinary experiences of immersion between space, image and sound.

His exploration of spirituality and the human experience, from suffering to atonement, focuses on bodies and faces, at the center of his works, captured in the interaction with forces and energies of nature such as water and fire, light and darkness, the cycle of life and that of rebirth.

Carve out some time and arm yourself with patience (Viola's videos flow so slow as to be similar to paintings) for this unique experience, in a sumptuous and evocative place like Palazzo Bonaparte, inaugurated as an exhibition space in 2019, closed shortly thereafter due to the Covid-19 pandemic and now restarting with an event of great interest.

Who: Bill Viola
What: Icons of Light
Where: Palazzo Bonaparte, piazza Venezia 5
When: March 5 > June 26, 2022
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