On the occasion of the Reformation Anniversary 2017, Deichtorhallen Hamburg show a comprehensive exhibition by American artist Bill Viola (*1951 in New York) featuring 13 video installations created since 1992. His work examines core themes of human life – birth, emotion, spirituality, love, and death. The artist is particularly interested in the mystical traditions of Christianity, Zen Buddhism and Islam. Reflected in ­almost all his video installations, there is a spiritual ­openness that addresses the viewers' bodies as a ­medium for borderline experiences, which contributes to their impressive aura. At times, their ultra-slow motion aesthetics allude to aesthetics influenced by the iconog­raphy of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – with archaic force, yet formally highly sophisticated, these unique images convey the experience of the sublime and spiritual using the pictorial language of the global-ized 21st century. After numerous projects and exhibi­tions, such as at the Grand Palais in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as US representative at the 46th Venice Biennale, and currently at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Bill Viola is today one of the most important contemporary artists, and regarded as the leading re­presentative of video art.

Exhibition:
Deichtorhallen Hamburg Hall for Contemporary Art, June 2 – September 10, 2017
 

Bill Viola, born 1951, is a American contemporary video artist who was one of the first, using for his work the emerging technologies of electronic, sound, and image technology in New Media. His artistic idea is focused on questions behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness. 1995 he represented the USA at Venice Biennale in the American pavilion. The attractive and charismatic possibilities he uses led to numerous invitations for solo exhibitions as well as group shows: 1973 Everson Museum of Art Syracuse, 1974 The Kitchen Center New York, 1979 MoMA New York, 1983 Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1985 Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, 1987 MoMA New York, 1988 Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 1992 Centro de Arte Reina Sofia Madrid, 1994 American Center in Paris (inaugural opening show), 1996 Savannah College of Art and Design, 1997 Whitney Museum of American Art New York, 2000 ZKM Karlsruhe, 2003 Getty Museum Los Angeles, 2004 Gugenheim Bilbao, 2006 Kunsthalle Bremen, 2007 Mori Art Museum Tokyo, 2012 Villa Panza Varese, 2013 Puertas de Castilla Murcia, 2017 Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

Dirk Luckow (*1958) has been the General Director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg since 2009. He graduated 1996 with a dissertation on Joseph Beuys and the American Anti-Form-Art. Luckow has since worked at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Württembergische Kunstverein in Stuttgart. He also worked as project manager for visual arts at the Siemens Arts Program in Munich, before he became Director of the Kunsthalle zu Kiel from 2002 to 2009. From 2007 to 2009 he was a member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin. In 2016, Luckow received an honorary professorship at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg.