Gao Xingjian and Robert Wilson at Barcelona's #LoopFestival2024

For the 2024 edition of LOOP Festival Barcelona, Robert Wilson’s Video Portrait of Gao Xingjian (HF Video, 2005), writer and 2000 Nobel Laureate in Literature, enters a visual dialogue with a work by Xingjian himself, “Lumière” (Ink on canvas, 2015). Complemented by Wilson’s “Messiah” drawings (Charcoal on paper, 2020), the exhibition at galeria SENDA invites the viewer to an experience of slow and reflective contemplation. In a world of rapid stimuli and fleeting images, it forces us to stop, to feel each small gesture, to observe and to appreciate the power of subtlety in art.

This Weekend: The Auction is Back at the Watermill Center Summer Benefit

Come and celebrate and support the arts at The Watermill Center’s Annual Summer Benefit and Auction this Saturday July 27! Discover a unique collection of artworks from celebrated artists Vija Celmins, Roni Horn, Jacqueline Humphries, Shirin Neshat, Robert Longo, Kikuo Saito, and Robert Wilson. All auction proceeds directly support The Watermill Center's Artist-in-Residence program. Since 2006, this initiative has provided artists from around the globe with the resources to innovate and excel. Your participation helps sustain an environment where artists can thrive and interact with the community, enriching their work and fostering professional growth.

Please note that attendance at the gala, where the live auction will take place during dinner, requires the purchase of tickets. Secure your spot now to join us for this remarkable evening: Click Here For Summer Benefit Tickets.

KIKUO SAITO

Spanish Chair II, 2008; Oil on canvas; 40 1/4 x 59 3/4 inches (102.2 x 151.8 cm)

Kikuo Saito (1939-2016) was a Japanese-American painter, sculptor, and theater designer known for his vibrant abstract canvases and lyrical use of color. Saito's works often combine elements of painting and performance, reflecting his background in theater. His art is characterized by bold brushstrokes, dynamic compositions, and a vibrant palette, evoking a sense of movement and emotion. Saito was also a close collaborator of Robert Wilson, contributing his artistic vision to several of Wilson's avant-garde theater productions, including "Deafman Glance" and "A Letter for Queen Victoria." Their collaboration melded visual art and theater, creating immersive and innovative stage environments. (Image courtesy of Kikuo Saito)

ROBERT WILSON

Vessel, 1994-2005; 15 H x 14 dia inches (38.1 H x 35.6 dia cm)

Born in Waco, Texas, Robert Wilson (b. 1941) is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide. Works made at CIRVA, International Centre for Glass and Plastic Arts Research, in Marseille, France.

ROBERT LONGO

Untitled (After Velazquez, Mars 1640-1642), 2008; Graphite and charcoal on paper; 7 1/2 x 4 inches (19.1 x 10.2 cm); 25 x 20 5/8 x 13/16 inches framed (63.5 x 52.4 x 2.1 cm)

Robert Longo (b. 1953) is an American artist and filmmaker recognized for his large-scale, hyper realistic charcoal drawings. Longo gained prominence in the 1980s with his "Men in the Cities" series, depicting sharply dressed figures in dynamic, almost convulsive poses. His work often addresses themes of power, violence, and media influence, exploring the impact of contemporary culture and politics on society. (Image courtesy of Robert Longo's Studio)

VIJA CELMINS

Saturn Stamps, 1995; Offset lithograph; 12 3/16 x 9 3/8 inches (30.9 x 23.8 cm); Printed and published by Richard Anderson Fine Art, New York

Vija Celmins (b. 1938) is a Latvian-American artist celebrated for her meticulous drawings and paintings of natural phenomena such as ocean waves, starry skies, and desert floors. Celmins' work is characterized by its photorealistic detail and meditative quality, capturing the vastness and intricacy of the natural world. Her art reflects a deep fascination with texture, light, and space. Celmins, along with Robert Wilson, won the prestigious Japanese Praemium Imperiale award, highlighting her significant contribution to the arts. (Image courtesy of Vija Celmins Studio)

SHIRIN NESHAT

Women Without Men (Untitled #2), 2004; C-print; 46 1/4 x 61 5/8 inches (117.5 x 156.5 cm); 49 1/2 x 64 3/4 inches framed (125.7 x 164.5 cm); Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957) is an Iranian-born artist and filmmaker renowned for her evocative photographs and video installations that explore themes of gender, identity, and power. Neshat's work often focuses on the experiences of women in Islamic societies, blending personal narratives with broader socio-political commentary. Her visually striking and emotionally powerful pieces challenge viewers to confront cultural stereotypes and injustices. In 2011, Neshat was an Artist in Residence at The Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts and humanities that annually hosts a new community of international artists, where she further developed her distinctive artistic voice. (Image courtesy of Shirin Neshat Studio)

Please note that attendance at the gala, where the live auction will take place during dinner, requires the purchase of tickets. Secure your spot now to join us for this remarkable evening: Click Here For Summer Benefit Tickets.

Cathedral of Light: "Shining a Light in Dark Times"

Robert Wilson’s installation Star and Stone: a kind of love … some say opened on May 24 in Rouen, on the cathedral Notre-Dame de Rouen, which was famously painted many times by Claude Monet. The installation can be viewed Fridays and Saturdays at 11PM until June 29, then each night in July at 11PM, each night in August at 10:30PM (10PM starting Aug. 16), and again Fridays and Saturdays at 9:30PM until September 28.

The Financial Times wrote an in-depth article about the work: “Robert Wilson in Rouen: shining a light in dark times” by Anna Sansom (May 27, 2024)

The French-German TV programme “arte” aired this piece on the Normandy Impressionist Festival on June 9, 2024.

A closer look at Star and Stone starts around 17’25”:

Here is a link to the arte web site.

More photos from the opening in Rouen can be found in our smugmug photo album.

MARY's visit to the UK: "A Rare Chance," and a "Collector's Item"

Mary Said What She Said played 4 shows at London’s Barbican Theater last week to sold-out houses and to wide acclaim. Many thanks to everyone who helped make this tour such a success!

“This is a complex meditation on divine right, betrayal and mortality ... Huppert ... holds herself like a young ballerina. ... Wilson and Pinckney sift and intensify her experience, reinforcing it through strangeness and repetition. It’s a demanding but rewarding watch: a tour de force performance by Huppert, and a rare chance to catch Wilson’s work in the UK.”
— Nick Curtis, The Standard (05/11/2024)
“Huppert is astounding: her delivery mesmerising, her movement precise, her gaze unblinking, her presence riveting. A tough, unique piece of work.”
— Sarah Hemming, Financial Times (05/13/2024)
“The paradox of a queen who was also a political pawn is captured with breathtaking ferocity by ... Isabelle Huppert [in a] 90-minute tour de force ... The text, by Darryl Pinckney, is directed by Robert Wilson more like a libretto than a play, its tempi slowing and accelerating to tongue-twisting speed, in counterpoint with a lush orchestral score from Ludovico Einaudi. ... This show will not be to everyone’s taste, but for fans of Wilson and the magnificent Huppert, it is a collector’s item.”
— Claire Armitstead, The Guardian (05/12/2024)
“This production ... resembles an act of defiance in keeping with the embattled fortitude of its benighted subject. ... Here is history in all its peculiar horror, lifted free of text-books and turned into a spectacle of existential suffering.”
— Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph (05/11/2024)
“Robert Wilson’s production has a curious power to bridge gaps between opposites. It is dense, Huppert fires words like a majestic barrage of bullets, but also light: Darryl Pinckney’s lyrical language is inflected with Tudor verse, flashes of Shakespeare, and cloaked in Beckettian existential angst.”
— Alexander Cohen, Broadway World (05/11/2024)
“On a mostly empty stage – except for one part where she is amidst the clouds; the ascension of Mary, perhaps – Huppert captivates as the frenzied queen, rushing towards the front of the stage, chopping the air with her hands, ... shouting out her words in a way that still remains elegant, bending to the music that continues throughout. Composer Ludovico Einaudi’s sweeping strings at the start give way to an orchestral version of house music where the drop never arrives. It makes for a thrilling, breathless conclusion for both Huppert and audience alike. In the opening 20 minutes or so, it seems as if Wilson’s show will drag on forever, but by the end one hopes it will never end.”
— Richard Maguire, The Reviews Hub London (05/11/2024)
“One of the most galvanising, mesmerising, virtuoso performances I have ever been privileged to witness.”
— BBC Radio 3 Presenter Donald Macleod on "X" @DonaldMacleod01 (05/11/2024)

Isabelle Huppert (Photograph © Lucie Jansch)

Wrestling in Venice

The 2024 edition of “Glasstress” by the Berengo Foundation opened in Venice last weekend. On the island of Murano, the center of Venetian glassmaking since the 13th century, glass exhibitions and installations by various artists, curated by Umberto Croppi, can be viewed (and purchased) until November 24, 2024.

Robert Wilson’s newest glass creation, in collaboration with the glass masters of Berengo Studio, was inspired by a pair of Chinese ceramic figurines from the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD): two acrobats kneeling and balancing pottery jars on their arms. At the same time, with their outstretched arms, they seem on the verge of fighting each other. Indeed, acrobatics in the Han Dynasty included juggling and martial arts, and even some ancient Chinese warriors were trained in both.

In a rare figurative approach, Wilson and the Berengo Studio contemplated on these Han acrobats, and—instead of ceramics, using glass with its fascinating lightness and heaviness at once—created a series of unique pairs of “Wrestlers.” The Wrestlers appear more performative than sculptural in their palpable readiness to move and strike.

“Robert Wilson’s “Wrestlers” seem to be one of the few figurative representations of characters in the artist’s oeuvre, while explicitly corresponding with the performing arts. They seem to express the staggering power of a gesture that is stopped, suspended; if only for a fraction of a second. Between these wrestlers, between the intention and the act, everything is frozen. It is this sublime moment between extreme tension and calm that Wilson reveals to us. These little figurines, as strong and fragile as glass, do not just tell us a random anecdote, but, like votive offerings, lead us to the sensitive heart of Wilson’s universe.”
— Françoise Guichon, museum curator and former director of CIRVA (International Glass and Visual Arts Research Center, Marseille, France), who invited Robert Wilson in 1994 to Marseille as a resident artist, and collaborated with him on several glass creations.

Glasstress is a project by Adriano Berengo to further his mission to promote the use of glass in the world of contemporary art. The first Glasstress exhibition was launched in 2009 to establish a new platform for art made with glass. Founded as a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale of Arts, although its roots will always remain in Murano it has gone on to tour the world. Coinciding with the 60th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Glasstress returns to its original location—an old furnace on the island of Murano transformed into an exhibition space—together with a special project at the Tesa 99 in the Arsenale Nord. The title of the exhibition is an homage to filmmaker Federico Fellini and his masterpiece of the same name, a film which hinges on the theme of artistic creation. It also emphasises the exhibition's eighth, specially "expanded" edition, with the 1/2 indicating two large never before seen installations that will be exhibited in Tesa 99.

MESSIAH Limited Run and Exhibition in Barcelona

Tonight, Robert Wilson’s celebrated production of The Messiah will open for a limited run at the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona. It is the famous oratorio by G.F. Händel, but in the seldom-performed “classical” arrangement by W.A. Mozart. Performances are from March 16 through 26, 2024.

The run will be complemented by an exclusive exhibition of drawings that Robert Wilson made in Salzburg, while working on the original production. Galeria Senda will present these from March 20 through April 20, 2024 at their wonderful space on Trafalgar Street in Barcelona.

Incidentally, the beautiful Gran Teatre del Liceu was the very first opera house that Robert Wilson ever visited. He was hitchhiking through Europe - his first time on the continent - while he was still a student in Texas. Hear him talk about the experience in this interview with Victor García de Gomar: