Bill Viola opens a major retrospective show at Grand Palais in Paris from 5 March - 21 July 2014. The exhibition features twenty works on fifty screens and is one of the largest retrospectives of the artist’s work. The exhibition presents works from all four decades of Viola’s career from The Reflecting Pool (1977-79) to The Dreamers (2013): videos (Chott El Djerid (A Portrait in Light and Heat), 1979), monumental installations (The Sleep of Reason, 1988), portraits on plasma (The Quintet of the Astonished, 2000), sound pieces (Presence, 1995), video sculptures (Heaven and Earth, 1992), intimate works (Nine Attempts to Achieve Immortality, 1996) or super productions (Going Forth By Day, 2002).

Viola sees this exhibition as an inner journey, divided into three phases around major metaphysical questions: Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? In his works he explores life, death, transcendence, rebirth, time and space, often using the metaphor of a body plunged into water to represent the fluidity of life. His images seek to give a new insight into these fundamental questions that are deep at the core of human existence. A dimension that gives his work special universal power, beyond any art movement or style, which explains why this body of work has fascinated viewers all over the world for the last forty years.

Find out more on the Grand Palais website.

Photo credit: Going Forth By Day, 2002