Bill Viola

Bill Viola, internationally recognized as one of today's leading artists, is head of Bill Viola Studio in Long Beach, CA. Elected 2000 (IV:5). Recipient, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1989). For 40 years Viola has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces and works for television broadcast. Viola is a contemporary video artist whose artistic expressions focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death and aspects of consciousness. Featured in museums and galleries worldwide as well as private collections, his work explores new media through electronic, sound and image technology. His video installations, distinguished by their precision and direct simplicity, employ state-of-the-art technologies. Throughout his career he has drawn meaning and inspiration from his deep interest in mystical traditions, especially Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism and Islamic Sufism, often evident in the transcendental quality of some of his works. Viola was the subject of a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1998, and was chosen to represent the United States at the 46th Venice Biennale in 1995. He has received six honorary degrees, including doctorates from Syracuse University, the Royal College of Art in London, and the University of Liège in Belgium. In 2006 he was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. In 2011 he received the Praemium Imperiale from the Japanese Art Association.