Celebrities pose for hours to take pictures of Robert Wilson

written by Jackie Palumbo

A celebrity’s image can be quickly shaped by a single photo, TikTok video, or news headline, but in Robert Wilson’s video images captured over the past two decades, he’s calling on viewers to slow down – road down -— with hours-long poses by celebrities including Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt and Isabella Rossellini.

Now on view at Art Gallery of South Australia, Moving Pictures showcases A-Listers in meticulously curated scenes drawn from art history, film, and culture – mixed with images of lesser-known people and animals – with each video containing only subtle hints of movement over the course of the year. long time periods.

This photograph of Lady Gaga was first shown at the Louvre Museum in Paris in 2013. attributed to him: RW Work, Ltd.

In one portrait, which required a seven-hour pause, Lady Gaga directed the regal portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière, originally painted by 19th-century French artist Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres. During filming, a tear rolled down the cheek of the pop star and actor.

In a noir scene for Princess Caroline of Monaco, the Queen pays tribute to her mother, Grace Kelly, and her famous roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s films, appearing in a pose reminiscent of the 1954 movie Rear Window. Video works are projected on a human scale on large, high-definition screens around the show.

“I fantasize about buds with everyone,” Wilson said in an email. “With Lady Gaga, I was having an exhibition of my works and collections at the Louvre (in Paris) and wanted to have pictures of Gaga based on the museum’s collection.”

Princess Caroline of Monaco in a 2006 photo. attributed to him: RW Work, Ltd.

A famous theater director who has been in business for over five decades, Wilson is known for experimental opera and groundbreaking theater productions where he has long played with the lore of time. His four-act opera with composer Philip Glass from 1976, “Einstein on the Shore,” is nearly five hours uninterrupted, allowing viewers to come and go as they please. He also held an unforgettable 24-hour show for seven days at Mount Haft Tan near the Iranian city of Shiraz, “a kind of frame or window to the world where ordinary and extraordinary events can be watched together,” cataloged as saying about the 1972 production.

Wilson said he first came up with the idea for super slow motion video footage in the 1970s, imagining them appearing in “hotel lobbies, banks, bus stations, and (on) the back seats of planes.” By the early 2000s, when business photography began, high-resolution screens were easy to get hold of, and he could choose the portrait format, “to match a human’s stature,” he explained.

Brad Pitt was pictured in 2004. attributed to him: RW Work, Ltd.

Celebrities often have limited time to take pictures – sometimes just a few minutes – but Wilson stumbled a few hours for Robert Downey Jr., who became the corpse-like subject in a portrait referring to an anatomical painting from 1632 by Rembrandt, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was cited as Saint Sebastian holding the arrow, as well as Salma Hayek and Winona Ryder.

And although Wilson did many of his work before fast-paced clips dominated online social media, they have a special resonance today. They are not easily viewed on the Internet and are meant to be fully appreciated in a way that forces viewers to take their time. Wilson said, “I think these actions are inconsistent with the era (in which) we live.”

Top image: Robert Downey Jr. in Rembrandt’s “Anatomy Lesson by Dr. Nicholas Tulp.”

Originally published at San Jose News Bulletin