It is not that often that an artistic talent crosses so many mediums and borders, or that the breadth of that talent’s achievement is so celebrated and acknowledged by contemporaries. Susan Sontag even wrote that “[she] cant think of any body of work as large or as influential.” Then again, it’s not that often that you can say that one person both helped redefine opera and took home the Golden Lion for Sculpture from the Venice Biennale. One of these rarities is director/ playwright/ choreographer/ performer/ painter/ sculptor/ video artist/ sound and lighting designer Robert Wilson, and having touched so many creative fields, this weekend there will surely only be one destination for Salzburg’s artistic communities: the opening of the Wilson exhibition’s Video Portraits at Museum der Moderne.
The influence of Einstein of the Beach – Wilson’s 1976 collaboration with Philip Glass – on the contemporary notion of the operatic form considered, no one could be too surprised by the innovative approach taken here with regard to the portrait. Blending a conscious nod to the histories of painted and photographic portraiture within a version of Tableau Vivant so radically departed from the original as to require a new name (Tableau Post-Vivant?!), Wilson presents the filmed product of staging his subjects in re-enactments that extend past of the borders of the recreated image and into cultural history and the artist’s own biography. Notable among many Hollywood stars and celebrity’s portraits are Robert Downey Jr. portraying the corpse of Rembrandt’s painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) and Johnny Depp staged as reincarnation of Marcel Duchamp’s Rrose Sélavy (photograph by Man Ray, 1921).
Although it’s easy to get a little star struck surrounded by so many famous faces – portraits of Farah Diba, Marianne Faithfull, Jeanne Moreau and Dita von Teese are also included – Wilson’s artistic language may reach its climax with the portraits of unknown people and animals. Unhampered by a recognizable face, the empathy at the center of the works is allowed to take the center stage.
Art always takes the center stage at Arthotel Blaue Gans. Once you can pry yourself away from the some 100 original artworks in the hotel itself, Museum der Moderne can be found meters from the front door.
Images courtesy Museum der Moderne
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