Hey, this is life. Stop believing in portraits as a stand-in for spirituality or charisma , sexual conquests or despair , an artist's agonized reflection . All are fictions. Imagine the human presence as yet another pose, one conditioned by all the old games of gender and culture. Somehow, nothing could be more postmodern and yet so grandiose.
Virtual reality uses equipment that no one understands for long.
It provides televised images that seemingly never go away. It means multiple film screens bigger than most New York apartments. If it abolishes reality, it also restores awe and belief. Elemental man Bill Viola's two new installations aim for grandeur. They tower over the viewer, and their themes of fire and water come right out of myth.