OEDIPUS in Budapest - A Statement by Robert Wilson

“I am very proud to have shown my theater production of OEDIPUS (Pompeii, 2018) in Budapest and shared this experience with the people of this beautiful city. In the spirit of ancient Greek theater, and its early roots in the agora, the center of social, political and also artistic life in the city, I cannot ignore the overall context in which this guest performance has taken place.

It is with much regret and sorrow that I have been watching the freedom of artistic expression and education be restricted by the current national government of Hungary. The so-called ‘model change’ at the SZFE University, which was carried out last year, was an undemocratic attack on the University's autonomy. The new board of trustees that was implemented there by the government was led by Attila Vidnyánszky, who is also the director of the MITEM Festival and many other cultural institutions in the country.

While I am happy that my work could be seen by the people of Budapest, I consider it my civic duty to state that I do not agree to the gutting of educational and artistic independence and freedom, nor to the unhealthy concentration of too much power and influence in the hands of a few. I will therefore donate half of my artist fee, received from the National MITEM Festival to the FreeSZFE initiative, which is continuing their independent educational work without support or even acknowledgment from the current government. Moreover, I will join a conversation with FreeSZFE students in the coming weeks. I sincerely hope that FreeSZFE will keep receiving support from all over the world, and most importantly, soon be reinstated as a public university by the Hungarian government.”

Robert Wilson; Paris, September 17, 2021

NOW ONLINE: Sotheby's Presents a Benefit Auction for The Watermill Center →

Sotheby’s is excited to announce a curated grouping of artworks to benefit the Watermill Center. The Watermill Center is a laboratory for the arts and humanities, established in 1990 in Water Mill, New York, by theater artist Robert Wilson. For 30 years, Watermill has been a site for artist residencies, exhibitions, and education, with a focus on emerging international artists. In 2016, The Watermill Center initiated the Inga Maren Otto Fellowship, which includes among its alumni: Carrie Mae Weems, Tania Bruguera, Shaun Gladwell, Anne Carson, and Barthelemy Toguo. The Watermill Center welcomes over 200 artists for residencies each year, and offers free educational programming to students from the local communities of Long Island. The Center's research library, art collection, and gardens are free and open to the public.

Robert Wilson reads Arthur Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell"

Robert Wilson curated an exhibition on photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe in Berlin at the Galerie Thomas Schulte just before the lockdown hit Europe.

For this exhibition, Robert Wilson, a friend of Robert Mapplethorpe, uses his own voice recording of Rimbaud’s enigmatic and mesmerizing text as acoustic backdrop in his presentation of Mapplethorpe’s work at the gallery.

You can listen to the recording here.

Apollo Magazine: Robert Wilson Video Portraits →

While museums around the world are shuttered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibition openings will be replaced by a selection of digital initiatives providing virtual access to art and culture.

Robert Wilson, the artist and theatre director, made his first set of ‘video portraits’ in the 1970s: sitters included the Surrealist writer Louis Aragon, the museum director Pontus Hultén, and Hélène Rochas (of Rochas fashion house). In 2004 he returned to the idea during a residency with the now-defunct VOOM HD Networks. The resulting high-definition ‘VOOM Portraits’ depict celebrities like Brad Pitt and Isabella Rossellini in suitably theatrical mises-en-scènes, along with less familiar figures – such as a black panther and a snowy owl. Broadcasting from isolation in Berlin, Wilson has now made a selection of these portraits available online for the first time (five in April and a further five in May, with more to come). View them on the artist’s website.