American, 1951 - 2024
Bill Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973 where he studied visual art with Jack Nelson and electronic music with Franklin Morris. During the 1970s he lived for 18 months in Florence, Italy, as technical director of production for Art/Tapes/22, one of the first video art studios in Europe, and then traveled widely to study and record traditional performing arts in the Solomon Islands, Java, Bali, and Japan.
Viola was instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. For over 40 years he created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. Viola’s video installations—total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound—employed state-of-the-art technologies and were distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity.
Viola used video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focused on universal human experiences—birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness—and have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. Using the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicated to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way.
Viola was the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989). In 2006 he was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. In 2009 he received the XXI Catalonia International Prize in Barcelona, Spain and was awarded the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale art award in the category of painting in 2011. Viola was elected an Honorary Royal Academician in 2017.
Viola was instrumental in the establishment of video as a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing helped to greatly expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach. For over 40 years he created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcast. Viola’s video installations—total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound—employed state-of-the-art technologies and were distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity.
Viola used video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focused on universal human experiences—birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness—and have roots in both Eastern and Western art as well as spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and Christian mysticism. Using the inner language of subjective thoughts and collective memories, his videos communicated to a wide audience, allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own personal way.
Viola was the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989). In 2006 he was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. In 2009 he received the XXI Catalonia International Prize in Barcelona, Spain and was awarded the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale art award in the category of painting in 2011. Viola was elected an Honorary Royal Academician in 2017.
