Two major contemporary video works – Bill Viola’s The Last Angel and Eve Sussman’s The Rape of the Sabine Women – will be on view alongside the historical works featured in Old Masters Week. This dialogue between the old and the new will highlight the power of visual languages at two distinct and transformative moments in time. Visitors to the view are encouraged to experience the relationships that exist in this art historical continuum across a variety of media.

Bill Viola’s The Last Angel is a ten-minute meditation on spirituality. Projected lengthways on a large plasma screen, the cryptic and hypnotic imagery depicts the lazy flow of water at the top of the frame, much like clouds scudding across the sky. While we are being mesmerized by this slow-motion imagery, eventually some bubbles start to collect at the bottom of the screen. In the final moments of this looped video, a fully-clothed angel emerges, plunging upwards through the shadowy underwater realm, creating a poetic visual experience.  His sudden arrival hauntingly evokes innumerable Renaissance depictions of divine visitations, visions and resurrections, with a beautiful, startling immediacy.