Bill Viola

Bill Viola born in 1951 in Queens, New York City, USA. He received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973. He currently lives and works in Long Beach, California, USA.

Viola is widely recognized as one of the leading video artists on the international scene. Since the early 1970s, he has used video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus on universal human experiences, such as birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness, and have roots in both Eastern and Western art and spiritual traditions. Viola’s video installations are total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound, employing state-of-the-art technologies; they are distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity. His single channel videotapes have been broadcast and presented cinematically around the world. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach.

Viola has held large solo exhibitions at major museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the National Gallery London, and the National Gallery of Australia. A number of these exhibitions have traveled worldwide. He has also collaborated with rock group Nine Inch Nails and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His work on a new production of Richard Wagner’s opera, “Tristan and Isolde,” was presented at the L’Ope?ra National de Paris Bastille, the Disney Concert Hall, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

In the course of his forty-year career, Viola has received numerous awards and honors, and he holds honorary doctorates from Syracuse University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, California Institute of the Arts, and the Royal College of Art, London. 

http://www.billviola.com/