ROBERT WILSON: VIDEOPORTRAITS
SLOVAK NATIONAL GALLERY

13 December 2013 – 23 March 2014

The exhibition, entitled ROBERT WILSON VIDEOPORTRAITS presented a selection of his iconic video portraits of personalities from various spheres of art and pop culture.

The VIDEOPORTRAITS were introduced to the art world at ACE Gallery in Los Angeles; the European public was last able to see them at the end of August in St. Moritz, Switzerland, and in December 2013, thanks to the cooperation of J&T BANKA with the Pavleye Art and Culture Agency, they will have their Slovak premiere at the SNG.

The video portraits of personalities such as Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder, Juliette Binoche and Dita Von Teese are the result of Wilson’s work with composer Michael Galass, fashion designer Kevin Santos and light designer Urs Schönebaum. Visitors to the Slovak National Gallery will have the unique opportunity to experience the works in 3D – accompanied by a lighting and audio that highlight Robert Wilson’s talent and his overlap among individual media. The VIDEOPORTRAITS exhibition is also unique in its technical installation, which requires specific spacing between individual works, and conceptually links the gallery’s interior with its exterior. During Wilson’s gallery premiere in Bratislava, his works will also be on display at the Louvre in Paris.

A theatre director, choreographer, video artist, and designer of sound and light installations, Robert Wilson has also become known thanks to his work with personalities from various areas of art and culture (Allen Ginsberg, David Byrne, Tom Waits, Marina Abramović). Most recently, pop icon Lady Gaga has announced that she will be working with Wilson on her new ARTPOP project.

Wilson, a Texas native, began his artistic career in early 1970s; the 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach brought both him and composer Philip Glass worldwide recognition. An experimenter, Robert Wilson pushes and extends the boundaries of theatre through his work. His works are visually complex, with extravagant style and wide multimedia scope. In 2004 a short stint in television inspired him to create the Voom Portraits series, which he created with producer Esther Gordon and later with Matthew Shattuck. The Slovak National Gallery will present selected works from this open-ended project from 12 December until the end of February 2014.

Partners

PAVLEYE ART AND CULTURE, J&T BANKa