Subdued, corporate, beautiful, agreeable.

Bill Viola has the reputation to make a piece of video art for installation in a historic space like St. Paul’s Cathedral. Both Martyrs and Mary fit the space, the iconography and imagery are appropriate. The steel construction that houses the screens adds weight, anchoring them in the space, the arrangement of three and four vertical screens references the towering height of the space and the windows.

The beautifully photographed imagery often has a painterly quality, especially in Martyrs, to me it looks like a painting that was already in the space has been given life.

By treading similar ground to other religious artworks that were already in St. Paul’s I was left wondering why they were necessary. St. Paul’s is already a beautiful, contemplative space, I’m not sure how these works enhanced that. This left me contemplating another aspect of the works instead, the corporate collaborations. On the information board about the work it is made clear that the steel structure housing the work was designed with Foster and Partners. Bill Viola, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Foster and Partners all have international reputations, it was the nature of how this collaboration came about that I spent my time with the work deliberating. This high production value made it difficult for me to not draw parallels with the worlds of advertising and music video, with moving billboards on bus stops and lifestyle videos in clothing shops.