Purification. From Bill Viola to the Palatine Chapel

Palazzo Reale di Palermo hosts until 28 February 2022 the great Art Exhibition of the Federico II Foundation on the theme of Spirituality through the masterpieces of Bill Viola, the most visionary Video Artist of all time, together with the ancient finds and symbolism of the Palatine Chapel .

"We need new sacred images for our time!". This exclamation from Bill Viola effectively conveys the deeper sense of PURIFICATION [from Bill Viola to the Palatine Chapel]. In the exhibition, water is the primary element of purification and catharsis. As Kira Perov, executive director of Bill Viola Studio and the artist's wife says - "We all need cleansing from the ongoing global pandemic, so it's a very timely exhibition that offers sustenance and healing to its visitors."

The exhibition is curated by the Federico II Foundation and by Bill Viola Studio and is organized in conjunction with the Sicilian Regional Assembly, with the Sicilian regional museum system, with the Regional Councilorship for Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity, with the FEC (Fondo Edifici di Culto), with numerous Ecclesiastical Bodies and the Eparchy. The Foundation rejects the system of importing package exhibitions and makes an unprecedented effort to create exhibitions that come to life in the Royal Palace, never seen before and never repeated elsewhere.
In recent years, the Federico II Foundation has focused on deepening the cultural and iconological contents of the Royal Palace and the Palatine Chapel. The choice of welcoming Bill Viola's works is not accidental. Through water and cosmic elements, "P u r i f i c a t i o n" addresses the theme of spirituality, with the ambitious intention of stimulating an introspective experience in the visitor.

Bill Viola, with his technical and creative action, demonstrates how the existential themes and the emotional function of art have not changed in their substance over time. The medium, the instrument and the technique with which the artists express themselves change. There is no distinction between ancient and contemporary art.
For Viola, the thread of creativity and self-expression runs through the entire human history and each generation influences the next. So, even in Purification at the Royal Palace, there is a constant ongoing dialogue between the past and the present. By placing video works in these ancient rooms with their layered patina of history, the works themselves take on a new resonance in these spaces and the spaces are themselves transformed by the works. There is a deeper understanding of the works thanks to these moments of connection, in which ideas and emotions span hundreds of years.

The 35 works on display symbolically represent water. Five works by Bill Viola: Tristan's Ascension, Air Martyr, Earth Martyr, Fire Martyr and Water Martyr. Works that in the Duca di Montalto Rooms, transformed for the occasion, coexist seamlessly with baptismal basins, embroidered frontals from the second half of the seventeenth century, holy water stoups, gutters, works dating back even to the seventh century BC.... read the rest of the article»