Robert Wilson

Video Portraits

When the internationally celebrated artist Robert Wilson talks about his video portraits, he emphasizes his wish to create aesthetic and mental spaces. Dominated by an intensive artistic language of imagery and sound, Wilson’s “performers“have a surprisingly sensuous presence. Sixteen of these poetic works are on display at the MdM MÖNCHSBERG. They depict
theatrical stagings of Hollywood stars and celebrities such as Farah Diba, Robert Downey Jr., Marianne Faithfull, Johnny Depp, Jeanne Moreau and Dita von Teese, but also of animals and unknown passers-by.

Wilson’s artistry is shaped by some of his own unique personal experiences (speech impairment) and decisive impulses of the 1960s (from Performance to Minimal Art), which also influenced his legendary theatre productions since the 1970s. Wilson created his first video portraits of important personalities such as Louis Aragon, Pontus Hultén, Héléne Rochas, passers-by andanimals already in the 1970s. Since 2004 Robert Wilson has used the technical possibilities of highdefinition resolution for his portraits; this technique
allows him to differentiate the richness of his artistic language in his video and stage works.

Movements, gestures, make-up, costumes, scenery, use of lighting, the styles of high and pop culture, classical and new media: painting, design, music, opera, dance, theatre, photography, TV, film etc. are combined in Wilson’s video portraits. The personalities portrayed partially refer to his own biography, partially to sources of cultural history. For example, Robert Downey Jr. portrays the corpse of Rembrandt’s painting “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” (1632), while Johnny Depp is staged as reincarnation of Marcel Duchamp’s travesty “Rrose Sélavy“ (photograph by Man Ray, 1921). These tableaux are accompanied by texts spoken by Wilson himself and music by famous composers (including Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Raymond Scott, Tom Waits). Wilson’s complex artistic language of imagery and sound reaches its climax in his portraits of unknown people and animals which are a celebration of empathy.

His video portraits expand the limits of perception. In the history of portrait painting and photographic portraits, Wilson’s video portraits are a climax and a path-breaking achievement.

Concept and curator: Peter Weibel
Production: Dissident Industries

The catalogue “Robert Wilson. Video Portraits” has been published
in conjunction with the exhibition, including contributions by Robert
Wilson, Peter Weibel, Nicole Suthor, Ali Hossaini, Noah Khoshbin and
Matthew Shattuck. Edited by Peter Weibel, Harald Falckenberg and
Matthew Shattuck, Karlsruhe, 2011, 224 pages with 5 folding plates,
hard cover with linen, text in German and English, € 29.80.

More about Robert Wilson: robertwilson.com