Bill Viola: The Passions (Getty Exhibition)

This website documents Bill Viola's exhibition The Passions which was organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum. The exhibition was shown at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the National Gallery in London, Fundacio "laCaixa" in Madrid, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra during 2003.

Collection Principles
The videos, images, essays and catalogue excerpts displayed on the site are intended to give the user an understanding of the fundamentals that underlie Bill Viola's work. Because The Passions is a collection of installation works, great care has been taken on the part of the Getty to educate the user about the effects of exhibition spatial design, image format and size, and video speed in a physical exhibition.

Object Characteristics and Metadata
The website presents five video installations from The Passions exhibition that are explored in depth: Emergence, Silent Mountain, The Locked Garden, The Quintet of the Astonished, and Six Heads. Each work has its own page. The page consists of a thumbnail still image with metadata, interactive written excerpts and video clips or larger still images. The metadata is fairly standard for artworks. It includes title, date, medium, dimensions of work and can also include information about the installation space or about the commissioning of the work if applicable. The excerpts address issues meant to help the viewer better understand Viola's motivations. Topics associated with each video installation include: connections to past art, themes in art, the making of the video, artist's notebook entries, influences from past art, and a place for viewers to post their reactions to the work. Video excerpts from some of the works are available for streaming. Sometimes, the viewer is limited to stills from the original video.

Under "the Exhibition" there are still images from more works in The Passions exhibition. These still images allow the viewer to zoom in for better detail. The images are identified with minimal metadata and strung together with a brief essay by John Walsh, Curator and Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum. To supplement these images, there are links to the exhibition checklist and credits and to Mark Kidel's video documentary "Bill Viola and Emergence." The checklist and credits include all individuals involved with the works shown in the physical exhibitions (including the actors and production staff used by Viola) and all individuals involved with the website creation.

Audience
Although Bill Viola has his own website, very little of his visual work is available to the public in an easily accessible format. There are very few videos that can be purchased, even for exclusively educational purposes, of his more recent works. As such, the access that is provided by this website is quite remarkable to individuals interested in Viola's work. It would also be a good site for individuals interested in past Getty exhibitions or individuals interested in how contemporary artists interact with Medieval and Renaissance art.