Commenting in 2016 on the companion work,
Mary, Canon Mark Oakley wrote: 'Bill Viola's art
slows down our perceptions in order to deepen
them. He uses the very medium that controls
mass culture today, film, and subverts that control
to instead open up new possibilities and contours
of understanding.'
iv
Inviting visitors to slow down
had indeed been one of the key motivations for
St Paul's to initiate the decade-long development
process that led to the two installations by Bill
Viola and Kira Perov.
Though installed at St Paul's these works are
actually part of the Tate collection, on permanent
loan. This connection emphasizes the differences
between viewing art in a cathedral and visiting a
large-scale public art gallery like Tate Modern.
Although it is a commonplace to refer to art
museums as secular cathedrals – perhaps
heightened here as Tate Modern was fashioned
from a redundant power station designed in the
1940s by Giles Gilbert Scott who had spent the
previous decades creating Liverpool's Anglican
Cathedral – I would argue that cathedrals are
fundamentally distinct.
v
They are different first because of liturgy and
ritual. Whatever their civic role within a city and
however much enjoyed as tourist destinations,
cathedrals are organised around their rituals and
the words and music of the liturgy. Yet - in the
long view – changing religious practices have
been disruptive to the making of art. While the
Christian church has a distinguished history of
commissioning and inspiring artists both before
and since the Renaissance, the creation of the
Church of England (out of the turmoil of the
Reformation) came with a mindset against art
and the use of symbolic images. In the Victorian
period this was countered by a new determination
to pursue gothic-inspired decorative schemes
and often to add illustrative painted works to
churches and cathedrals. But in the 20th century
the uncertain place of religion in an increasingly
secular world, and a lack of religious affiliation
among prominent artists, impeded collaboration.
Bill Viola and Kira Perov. Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire and Water), 2014. 7 minute Digital Video. South Quire Aisle, St Paul's Cathedral
© Bill Viola Studio. Photograph by Sandy Nairne
i
The Guardian, 13 February 2010
ii
Jonathan Jones had been viewing new works in Durham Cathedral. The Guardian, 9 October 2006
iii
The Guardian, 21 May 2014
iv
St Paul's website: https://www.stpauls.co.uk/news-press/latest-news/bill-violas-major-new-work-for-st-pauls-cathedral-2
v
See for instance, Michael Prodger, 'Art Galleries – the Cathedrals of the Modern Age', New Statesman, 17 June, 2016,
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2016/06/art-galleries-cathedrals-modern-age
