‘Jesus Christ’ would seem a pretty appropriate reaction to Bill Viola’s video installation 'Martyrs', because it’s kind of shocking, awful and watchable all at the same time. Like a car crash or a Michael Bay film. It’s the ‘Transformers’ of religious art. It’s also the first permanent video installation at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Four screens are tucked away at the far end of the building. A separate figure fills each one. An old man sits motionless in a chair, a woman hangs suspended by her wrists, a man lies under a pile of dirt, and a final man lies curled in the foetal position with a rope tied to his feet.
Movement creeps into each scene. Little balls of fire start dropping around the pensioner, a gentle wind buffets the hanging woman, dirt starts flying upwards around the buried man and water starts dribbling from the sky above the curled figure. It builds in intensity until the old guy is completely ablaze, the woman is being blown about like a sock on a washing line, the flying dirt grows into an enveloping dust storm and the dripping water becomes a raging torrent. The characters are being put through their own individual trials by the elements. Their resolve, maybe even their faith, is being tested and they are being forced to confront their mortality.
Despite their struggles, however, the overall effect is farcical, in all of its overblown theatricality and slo-mo HD glory. Religious suffering is already inscribed in the gorgeous golden ceiling panels of St Paul’s, it’s in the crucifixes you see everywhere. You don’t really need it on TV screens too. Like putting a hat on a Fabergé egg or a spear on a nuclear missile, Viola’s work just isn’t adding anything.
Eddy Frankel