Bill Viola: Submerged-Spaces

A new exhibition co-curated by the Sainsbury Centre and

Norfolk & Norwich Festival opens Saturday 5 May

Bill Viola: Submerged-Spaces, a unique exhibition co-curated by the Sainsbury Centre

and Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

The exhibition brings the work of internationally celebrated video artist Bill Viola to

East Anglia for the first time in three venues across Norwich: the Sainsbury Centre for

Visual Arts, the Crypt of the Carnary Chapel at Norwich School and the Undercroft

beneath the Memorial Garden. The exhibition will run until Sunday 29 July.

Bill Viola is one of the world’s most celebrated video artists. His mesmerising installations

explore such fundamental experiences as birth, death and the meaning of human

consciousness. Viola has exhibited in galleries and museums across the world, creating

works that act with the viewing space to create intimate encounters that envelop the viewer.

This major, city-wide exhibition demonstrates Viola’s mastery of working practice over the

last decade, bringing together monumental and intimate pieces displayed in three

underground locations, creating a unique way of experiencing the works.

Professor Paul Greenhalgh, Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, said: “Bill Viola

is one of the most important artists of the last fifty years. The visual and symbolic intensity of

these moving tapestries of light embody a beautiful contradiction: that they operate

simultaneously in time, and outside of time.”

The Lower Gallery of the Sainsbury Centre will be transformed into a meditative space with

rooms dedicated to a set of four works: Four Hands (2001), Catherine’s Room (2001),

Surrender (2001) and the spectacular Ascension (2000). Two further installations will be

displayed at city-centre venues never before open to the public, inviting visitors to leave the

city behind and immerse themselves in the work. The Carnary Chapel, situated at Norwich

School within the Cathedral Close, will host Visitation (2008), while the final work, The

Quintet of the Unseen (2000), will be installed at the Undercroft, situated beneath the

Memorial Garden opposite City Hall.

All venues are open Tuesday – Sunday, 10am – 5pm. Admission to all venues is free to

UEA staff and students when tickets are collected from the Sainsbury Centre. Usual ticket

price £6; £4 concessions. Tickets are available from the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

and Norwich Theatre Royal. Other venues cash only.

ENDS

For further information about Norfolk & Norwich Festival, please contact:

Nicky Barrell

Press & PR Manager

Norfolk & Norwich Festival

01603 878281

07919 074148

Nicola.barrell@nnfestival.org.uk