Bill Viola - who has been seen in this gallery before, apparently, though I do not recall the event - has gained an international reputation in the last decade by his videos and installation pieces, particularly the former. It is, in fact, hard to classify him by any of these rather arbitrary terms or genres; but The Messenger is definitely a video work, with appropriate soundtrack. Projected on a screen in the darkened gallery, it makes for intensive viewing. (The Douglas Hyde, incidentally, has to be entered by the underground entrance instead of the usual one).
The basic material is simple: a young, nude man alternately sinks into water and emerges from it, fading out into vague subaqueous glimmers and reflections, then slowly rising up again until he breaks the surface. When he does so, a lacy veil of water gradually slides off him rather as if a garment or skin had been slowly shed. The pace is slow and ritualistic, even dreamlike, a common feature of most Viola works I have seen.
Obviously there is symbolism inherent in this - at times the young man seems to enact a ritual of drowning and coming back to life again, and it is easy enough to guess at some underlying, half-hinted theme of ritual cleansing and even resurrection. The weakest moments are when he breaks the surface with what is possibly intended to be a rapt, ecstatic expression but manages only to look soppy. Video artists, possibly because they feel that their medium has not yet become fully respectable, sometimes tend to lay on the "message" with a ponderous hand.
Allowing for this skin-deep layer of intellectual pretentiousness, however, the overall effect is quite beautiful and even haunting. The long, but not overlong, sequences in which the underwater body and the rippling water weave submarine shapes and reflections are gripping in themselves, and Viola is obviously a technical master of his medium.
At times we may be close to the visual world of Stanley Kubrick or Spielberg, but the aim is poetic rather than dramatic or narrative. The soundtrack is sometimes - to my ear at least - a little overdone and obtrusive, but generally apt and perfectly synchro nised with the action.
This exhibition (if it can, strictly, be called that) is a definite visual-cum-emotional experience in its own terms, and should be seen; it is one of the most interesting promotions the Douglas Hyde has given us.
Until January 31st.