Bill Viola has said of his famous video ‘Ocean Without A Shore’ (2007) - first shown in a deconsecrated chapel in Venice - that it is about the presence of the dead in our lives. He is an artist who, again and again, unashamedly looks at our continuity in time, if not in space. Each video seeks to capture at once the ephemerality of the ageing, battling human body and some transcendental durability of the human soul.

The location for this, Viola’s first solo exhibition in Berlin for six years, gives a particular poignancy to the existential thematics in his work. Haunch of Venison is situated half way down Heidestrasse, a road haunted by history. Not far away is the Invaliden Cemetry of Wounded Veterans, one of the oldest graveyards in the city. Since it was founded in 1748 as part of the Prussian hospital for injured soldiers, it served as the final resting place for thousands. Then, in 1961, with the construction of the Berlin Wall, came the systematic destruction of 2,800 graves to make way for the area of no man’s land, otherwise known as The Death Strip, a barren zone of watch towers and barbed wire.

Between the time of its erection and its fall in 1989, at least 136 people were confirmed killed trying to cross the Wall into West Berlin, and their deaths are today marked by small bronze plaques at intervals along the Wall’s previous course. In this place where the past and the present are constantly trying to accomodate each other, Viola’s videos, reconciling the two, are refreshing and inspiring.

In the vast blacked out space of the main gallery room is his large-scale video/sound installation ‘The Messenger’ (1996), which was originally commissioned for Durham Cathedral in England. It depicts a naked man submerged in water, slowly rising to the surface, taking a breath and then falling away from the camera again into the depths beneath him. As a response to a Christian place of worship dating back 900 years, the film has the religious references one might expect: it serves as an image of both birth and death, of re-incarnation, of innocence and first consciousness.

Yet, Viola is no Christian, and this is more than just a meditation on the story of Christ; it captures something of the human being itself, irrespective of any religious connotations. In one moment, the man’s body is large, clear, confident, coming closer and embracing life and then seconds later his outline is once more vague and he appears smaller and smaller. All the time he is limp, floating not swimming; at the mercy of the primal element that surrounds him and, in its bubbling noise, surrounds us.  A strange, transcendental experience is created: we experience at once fear of own vulnerability and mortality, and simultaneously a sense of calm derived from the continuity of time.

The rest of the show comprises new works from Viola’s Transfigurations series, the first of which was ‘Ocean Without a Shore’. These are a continuation of this first incarnation, again depicting silvery, grainy spectral figures that gradually come into colour focus as people – clothed or nude – drenched in flowing water. In the series of ‘Small Saints’ (2008), in which Viola uses six tiny OLED screens - a new technology with enhanced luminance – each figure appears alone in his or her own waterfall. Standing in a void of darkness, they appear at once confused and resolute. Sometimes they stare out at us in bewilderment. A man looks up to the Heavens for an answer. And a woman – long wet hair and water running off her lips and between her breasts – seems to embody some primal sexual instinct. These people are the many facets of our humanity.  Another much bigger screen, ‘Incarnation’ depicts two figures – at first you cannot make them out, but as they emerge we see they are an Asian man and a Western woman. We intrude upon their privacy and they stare back in dismay.

Bill Viola is an artist who has been a dynamic force behind video art for over thirty years. The images he conjures are unforgettable in their simplicity and thought-provoking in their concepts; they can be deeply disturbing and yet very reassuring.  If perhaps Viola’s works sometimes echo one another too closely, it never matters, for at each location they take on a new meaning. And on Heidestrasse in Berlin in 2009, they are particularly eerie and profound.

Installations 9 January - 21 February 2009
Screenings – Forum expanded – 59th Berlinale: 5 - 15 February 2009