Photo: Darin Moran
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ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Bill Viola (b.1951) is considered
a pioneer in the medium of video art and is internationally recognized
as one of today’s leading
artists. He has been instrumental in the establishment of video as
a vital form of contemporary art, and in so doing has helped to greatly
expand its scope in terms of technology, content, and historical reach.
For over 35 years he has 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—employ
state-of-the-art technologies and are distinguished by their precision
and direct simplicity. They are shown in museums and galleries worldwide
and are found in many distinguished collections. His single channel
videotapes have been widely broadcast and presented cinematically,
while his writings have been extensively published, and translated
for international readers. Viola uses video to explore the phenomena
of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus
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 communicate to a wide audience,
allowing viewers to experience the work directly, and in their own
personal way.
Bill Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse
University in 1973. 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. From 1973 to 1980 he performed with avant-garde
composer
David Tudor as a member of his Rainforest ensemble. In 1977 Viola
was invited to show his videotapes at La Trobe University (Melbourne,
Australia)
by cultural arts director Kira Perov who, a year later, joined him
in New York where they married and began a lifelong collaboration
working and traveling together. In 1980, they lived in Japan
for a year and
a half on a Japan/U.S. cultural exchange fellowship where they studied
Buddhism with Zen Master Daien Tanaka and became the first artist-in-residence
at Sony Corporation’s Atsugi research laboratories. Viola and
Perov have recorded mirages in the Sahara desert, studied animal consciousness
at the San Diego Zoo, made a photographic study of Native American
rock art sites, traveled for 5 months in the American Southwest recording
nocturnal desert landscapes with special cameras, and most recently
went to Dharamsala, India to record a prayer blessing with the Dalai
Lama.
Three major installations and videotapes were shown in New York
at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987, and Viola’s first large exhibition
of works toured six venues in Europe beginning in 1992, organized by
Kira Perov and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Viola represented the
U.S. at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995, premiering an ensemble of
five new installation works titled Buried Secrets. In 1997 the Whitney
Museum of American Art organized Bill Viola: A 25-Year Survey, an exhibition
that traveled for two years to six museums in the United States and
Europe. Viola was invited to be a Scholar at the Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles in 1998, and later that year created a suite of three new
video pieces for the rock group Nine Inch Nails’ world tour.
His 1994 video Déserts, created to accompany the music composition
of the same name by Edgard Varèse, premiered at the Wien Modern,
Konzerthaus, Vienna with Peter Eötvös conducting the Ensemble
Modern, and has since been presented by many other orchestras in live
performance. In 2002, Viola completed his most ambitious project, Going
Forth By Day, a five part projected digital “fresco” cycle
in High-Definition video, commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin
and the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Bill Viola: The Passions was exhibited
at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles in 2003 then traveled to the
National Gallery, London, the Fondación “La Caixa” in
Madrid and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. One of the
largest exhibition of Viola’s installations to date, Bill
Viola: Hatsu-Yume (First Dream) (October 26, 2006-January 8, 2007), drew over
340,000 visitors to the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. A reduced version
of the exhibition travels to the Hyogo Prefectural Museum in Kobe,
Japan, where it opens on January 23, 2007. In 2004 Viola began collaborating
with director Peter Sellars, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and executive
producer Kira Perov to create a new production of Richard Wagner’s
opera, Tristan und Isolde, which was presented in project form by the
Los Angeles Philharmonic in December 2004. The complete opera received
its world premiere at the Opéra National de Paris, Bastille
in April 2005 with a reprise in November. The concert version will
be presented once more at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in
April 2007, and at Avery Fisher Hall, New York, in May 2007, produced
by the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Viola is the recipient of
numerous awards and honors, including a John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1989, and
the first Medienkunstpreis in 1993, presented jointly by Zentrum für
Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, and Siemens Kulturprogramm,
in Germany. He holds honorary doctorates from Syracuse University (1995),
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1997), California Institute
of the Arts (2000), and Royal College of Art, London (2004) among others,
and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
2000. In 2006 he was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
by the French Government. Bill Viola and Kira Perov, his wife and long-time
collaborator, live and work in Long Beach, California.
KIRA PEROV
Kira Perov is executive director of Bill Viola Studio. She has worked
closely with Bill Viola, her husband and partner since 1978, managing,
creatively guiding and assisting with the production of all of his videotapes
and installations. With her knowledge of photography and video, she
has also documented their working process on location and in the studio
and amassed a large archive of images from their experiences together,
as well as images of the videotapes and installations. She has worked
on the cutting edge with printers to translate the moving images of
video onto paper in stills and frame grabs, encouraging experimentation
of printing techniques. She edits all Bill Viola publications, working
closely with curators and designers. Perov also organizes and coordinates
exhibitions of the work worldwide.
Kira Perov earned
her BA (Honors) in languages and literature from Melbourne University,
Australia in 1973, and traveled extensively throughout Europe and the
South Pacific, including Papua/New Guinea. In 1974 she was invited by
the Bulgaria/Australian Friendship commission to study the language
and culture of Bulgaria, where she lived for six months before returning
to Australia. When she invited Viola to Melbourne in 1977, Perov was
director of cultural activities at La Trobe University, curating exhibitions
and producing concerts. Later, in 1983 at the Long Beach Museum of Art
in California, Perov compiled a ten-year history of video art exhibitions
and documented the video collection at the museum. Her photographs,
including those documenting Viola’s work, have been widely published.
Please click here for the Bill Viola's biography
on the Getty's website.
CAREER
- Captain
of the “TV Squad,” 5th
grade, P.S. 20, Queens, New York, 1960
- Independent
artist since 1973
- Artist-in-residence,
WNET Thirteen Television Laboratory, New York,
1976-81
- Lived
in Japan on cultural exchange fellowship. Studied
with Zen priest/painter Daien Tanaka, 1980
- Artist-in-residence
at Sony Corporation's Atsugi Laboratories,
1980-81
- Instructor,
Advanced Video, California Institute of the Arts,
Valencia, California, 1983
- Represented
the United States at the 46th Venice
Biennale in the US Pavilion, 1995
- Getty
Scholar-in-residence at The Getty Research
Institute for the History of Art and the
Humanities, Los Angeles, 1998
- Elected
to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, United
States, 2000
AWARDS
- 1984 Polaroid Video
Art Award for outstanding achievement, USA
- 1987 Maya Deren Award,
American Film Institute, USA
- 1989 John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation Award, USA
- 1993 Skowhegan Medal
(Video Installation), USA
- 2003 Cultural Leadership
Award, American Federal of Arts, USA
- 2006 NORD/LB Art Prize, Bremen, Germany
HONORARY
DEGREES
- 1995 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, Syracuse University, New York, USA
- 1997 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, USA
- 1998 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California,
USA
- 1999 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts,
USA
- 2000 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California,
USA
- 2000 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, England
- 2004 Degree of Doctor
of Fine Arts, Royal College of Art, London, England
- 2005 Degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, Columbia College,
Chicago, Illinois, USA
- 2006 Degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, Otis College
of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California, USA
SELECTED
ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
- 1973 "New Video
Work," Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
- 1974 "Bill Viola:
Video and Sound Installations," The Kitchen Center, New York
- 1979 "Projects:
Bill Viola," The Museum of Modern Art, New York
- 1983 "Bill Viola,"
ARC, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
- 1985 "Summer 1985,"
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
- 1985 "Bill Viola,"
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
- 1987 "Bill Viola:
Installations and Videotapes," The Museum of Modern Art, New
York
- 1988 "Bill Viola:
Survey of a Decade," Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas
- 1989 "Bill Viola,"
Fukui Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukui City, Japan, part of The 3rd
Fukui International Video Biennale.
- 1990 "Bill Viola:
The Sleep of Reason," Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain,
Jouy-en-Josas, France
- 1992 "Bill Viola:
Nantes Triptych," Chappelle de l'Oratoire, Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Nantes, France
- 1992 "Bill Viola,"
Donald Young Gallery, Seattle, Washington (five installations)
- 1992 "Bill Viola:
Two Installations," Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London, England
- 1992 "Bill Viola.
Unseen Images," Stadtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf,
Germany. Travels to: Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (1993); Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (1993); Musée Cantonal
des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland (1993); Whitechapel Art Gallery,
London, England (1993), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel (1994)
- 1994 "Bill Viola:
Stations," American Center inaugural opening, Paris, France
- 1994 "Bill Viola:
Território do Invisível/Site of the Unseen," Centro Cultural/Banco
do Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- 1995 "Buried Secrets,"
United States Pavilion, 46th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.
Travels to Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover, Germany (1995); Arizona
State University Art Museum (1996)
- 1996 "Bill Viola:
New Work," Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia
(installation)
- 1996 "Bill Viola:
The Messenger," Durham Cathedral, Visual Arts UK 1996,
Durham, England. Travels to South London Gallery, London, England
(1996); Video Positiva-Moviola, Liverpool, England; The Fruitmarket
Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland; Oriel Mostyn, Gwynedd, Wales; The Douglas
Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (1997)
- 1997 “Bill Viola:
Fire, Water, Breath,” Guggenheim Museum (SoHo), New York
- 1997 “Bill Viola:
A 25-Year Survey” organized by the Whitney Museum of American
Art (catalogue). Travels to Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York (1998); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
(1998) (catalogue); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (1999);
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (1999); Art Institute
of Chicago, Illinois (1999-2000)
- 2000 “The World
of Appearances,” Helaba Main Tower, Frankfurt, Germany (permanent
installation)
- 2000 “Bill Viola:
New Work,” James Cohan Gallery, New York
- 2001 “Bill Viola:
Five Angels for the Millennium,” Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
- 2002 "Bill Viola:
Going Forth By Day," Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin
- 2003 "Bill Viola:
The Passions," Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- 2003 "Bill Viola,"
Kukje Gallery, Seoul
- 2003 "Bill Viola: Five Angels for
the Millennium," Ruhrtriennale, Gasometer, Oberhausen, Germany
- 2003 "Bill Viola:
The Passions," National Gallery, London
- 2004 "Bill Viola:
Temporality and Transcendence," Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
- 2005 "Bill Viola:
The Passions," Fundación "la Caixa,"
Madrid, Spain
- 2005 "Bill Viola
Visions," ARoS
Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus,
Denmark
- 2005 "Bill Viola,"
James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA
- 2005 "Tristan und
Isolde," fully staged opera premiere at the Opéra National
de Paris, France
- 2006 "Bill Viola
– Video", 2006 Recipient of the NORD/LB Art Prize, Kunsthalle
Bremen, Bremen, Germany
- 2006 "LOVE/DEATH
The Tristan Project," Haunch of Venison (two venues), London,
UK
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