LOOP Festival celebrates its 22nd edition, inviting us to explore the power of artistic gestures to awaken the viewer’s consciousness and provoke, albeit subtly, a change in the structures of power and thought. Under this premise, this year’s festival focuses on the ability of art to impact us deeply, generating a reflection that leads us to rethink our relationships and our place in a world marked by environmental and social challenges.

Robert Wilson: Master of Time 

In this context of transformation, galeria SENDA presents the work “Gao Xingjian/Video Portrait” by Robert Wilson, an artist who has been instrumental in redefining the boundaries of theater, visual arts and video art since the 1970s. Wilson began his career in video with Video 50 in 1978, a work that revolutionized audiovisual narrative with non-linear episodes created for television in Germany. Later, in 2004, he began his “Video Portraits” series, using new high-definition technology to capture iconic cultural and artistic figures in moving portraits that defy photography and film.

Wilson’s career is a continuing testament to innovation and multidisciplinarity. From his early theatrical productions and his collaboration with Philip Glass on the opera Einstein on the Beach, Wilson has worked with iconic figures such as Lou Reed, Susan Sontag and Laurie Anderson. His mastery of performance art and his ability to integrate elements such as lighting, sculpture and music have earned him global recognition at institutions such as the Louvre, the Pompidou Center and the ZKM Karlsruhe, where he has made his mark with stunning exhibitions.

“Gao Xingjian/Video Portrait”: Frozen Motion Portraits

The portrait of Gao Xingjian, writer and 2000 Nobel Laureate in Literature, is part of Wilson’s series that has explored the depth and subtlety of numerous characters, from Lady Gaga and Brad Pitt to exotic animals. In this work, Wilson employs a wide range of visual and narrative elements – such as lighting, makeup, set design and choreography – to create a work that appears static, but reveals minimal movement upon closer inspection. The result is a portrait that captures the essence of the character, trapping the viewer in a space suspended between film and photography.

“The Video Portraits can be seen in the three traditional ways that artists construct space.
If I hold my hand in front of my face, I can say it is a portrait. If I see my hand at a distance, I can say it is part of a still life,and if I see it from across the street, I can say that it is part of a landscape.

In constructing these spaces, we see an image which can be thought of as a portrait. 

If we look carefully, this still life is a real life.”

– Robert Wilson

In the case of “Gao Xingjian/ Video Portrait”, an 8 minute 53-second video portrait with music by Peter Cerone, Robert Wilson shows us a close-up black and white shot of the face of artist and writer Gao Xingjian. Crossing his face diagonally, a phrase appears in French: La solitude est une condition necessaire de la liberté ( Solitude is a necessary condition of freedom ), a nod to Xingjian’s autobiographical novel “The Book of a Man Alone”.

A Contemporary Dialogue on Video Art at LOOP Festival 2024

For this edition of LOOP Festival, Robert Wilson’s participation at galeria SENDA invites the viewer to an experience of slow and reflective contemplation. In a world of rapid stimuli and fleeting images, Wilson forces us to stop, to feel each small gesture, to observe and to appreciate the power of subtlety in art.