Sam Taylor-Wood's 2002 Exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery Explores Emotion Through Video and Photography

From October 21 to November 2, 2002, Matthew Marks Gallery in New York showcased Sam Taylor-Wood's exhibition titled "Passion." A key feature was the video projection "Pietà," which portrays her supporting actor Robert Downey Jr. in a reimagined religious tableau that symbolizes exhaustion. Taylor-Wood's art highlights emotional depth and physical suffering, utilizing slow-motion techniques reminiscent of early emotional studies, including Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals." The exhibition also presented a photograph of a nude male echoing Holbein's depiction of the dead Christ, alongside a series of intimate images of a couple. Her characteristic deadpan vulnerability is captured in a piece featuring a deceased hare, reflecting on her cancer recovery and earlier works like "Soliloquies" and "Five Revolutionary Seconds."