Bill Viola

Not to be confused withBill Viola (martial artist).

Bill Viola
Viola in 2009
Born	(1951-01-25)January 25, 1951 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	July 12, 2024(2024-07-12)(aged 73) Long Beach, California,U.S.
Education	Syracuse University(BFA)
Known for	Video art Electronic art New media art
Notable work	Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House(1982)
Website	billviola

William John Viola Jr.(US:/ˈvaɪoʊlə/VY-oh-lə,UK:/ˈviːoʊlə/VEE-oh-lə;January 25, 1951 – July 12, 2024) was an Americanvideo artistwhose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology innew media.His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness.

Early life and education

William John Viola Jr. was born on January 25, 1951, inFlushing, Queens,New York,and grew up inQueensandWestbury.He attended P.S. 20, in Flushing, where he was captain of the TV Squad. On vacation in the mountains with his family, he nearly drowned in a lake, an experience he described as "… the most beautiful world I've ever seen in my life" and "without fear," and "peaceful."

In 1973, Viola graduated fromSyracuse Universitywith aBachelor in Fine Artsin experimental studies.He studied in theCollege of Visual and Performing Arts,including the Synapse experimental program, which evolved intoCitrusTV.

Career

From 1973 to 1980, Viola studied and performed with composerDavid Tudorin the new music group "Rainforest" (later named "Composers Inside Electronics"). From 1974 to 1976, Viola worked as technical director atArt/tapes/22,a pioneering video studio led by Maria Gloria Conti Bicocchi, inFlorence,Italy where he encountered video artistsNam June Paik,Bruce Nauman,andVito Acconci.From 1976 to 1983, he was artist-in-residence atWNETThirteen Television Laboratory in New York. In 1976 and 1977, he travelled to theSolomon Islands,Java,andIndonesiato record traditional performing arts.

Viola was invited to show work atLa Trobe University(Melbourne, Australia) in 1977, by cultural arts directorKira Perov.Viola and Perov later married, beginning an important lifelong collaboration in 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 withZenMaster Daien Tanaka. During this time, Viola was also an artist-in-residence atSony Corporation'sAtsugiLaboratories.

In 1983, he became an instructor in Advanced Video at theCalifornia Institute of the Arts,in Valencia, California. Viola received aGuggenheim Fellowshipfor fine arts in 1985. He represented the United States at the 46thVenice Biennalein 1995 for which he produced a series of works calledBuried Secrets,including one of his best known worksThe Greeting,a contemporary interpretation ofPontormo'sThe Visitation.In 1997, theWhitney Museum of American Artorganized and toured internationally a major 25-year retrospective of Viola's work.

Viola was the 1998, Getty Scholar-in-residence at theGetty Research Institute,Los Angeles. Later, in 2000, he was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.In 2002, he completedGoing Forth By Day,a digital "fresco" cycle inhigh-definition video,commissioned by theDeutsche GuggenheimBerlin and theGuggenheim Museum,New York.

In 2003,The Passionswas exhibited in Los Angeles, London, Madrid, and Canberra. This was a major collection of Viola's emotionally charged, slow-motion works inspired by traditions withinRenaissancedevotional painting.

The first biography of Viola, entitledViola on Vídeo,was written by Federico Utrera (King Juan Carlos University) and published in Spain in 2011.

Bill Viola studio

Bill Viola studio is run by his wife, Kira Perov, who is the executive director. She worked with Viola from 1978 managing and assisting him with his videotapes and installations. She documents their work in progress on location. All publications from the studio are edited by Perov.

Death

Viola died from complications ofAlzheimer's diseaseat home inLong Beach, California,on July 12, 2024, at the age of 73, leaving behind his wife and longtime creative collaborator, Kira Perov, sons Blake and Andrei Viola, and daughter-in-law Aileen Milliman.

Artwork

Style

Viola's art deals largely with the central themes of human consciousness and experience – birth, death, love, emotion, and a kind of humanist spirituality. Throughout his career he drew meaning and inspiration from his deep interest in mystical traditions, especiallyZen Buddhism,Christian mysticism,andIslamic Sufism,often evident in thetranscendentalquality of some of his works.Equally, the subject matter and manner of westernmedievalandrenaissancedevotional art informed his aesthetic.

He often exploreddualism,or the idea that comprehension of a subject is impossible unless its opposite is known. For example, a lot of his work has themes such as life and death, light and dark, fire and water, stressed and calm, or loud and quiet.

His work can be divided into three types, conceptual, visual, and a unique combination of the two. Gardner feels that Viola's visual work, such as "The Veiling", and his combination of both the conceptual and visual, such as "The Crossing," are impressive and memorable.

Viola's work often exhibits a painterly quality, with his use of ultra-slow motionvideo encouraging the viewer to sink into the image and connect deeply to the meanings contained within it. This quality makes his work perhaps unusually accessible within a contemporary art context. As a consequence, his work often receives mixed reviews from critics, some of whom have noted a tendency toward grandiosity and obviousness in some of his work.

Viola's interest in capturing the essence ofemotionthrough recording of its extreme display began at least as early as his 1976 work,The Space Between the Teeth,a video of himself screaming, and continued with such works as the 45-secondSilent Mountain(2001), which shows two actors in states of anguish, which Viola described as “probably the loudest scream I’ve recorded.”

If Viola's depictions of emotional states with noobjective correlative— emotional states for which the viewer has no external object or event to understand them by—are one feature of many of his works, another, which has come to the forefront, is his reference tomedievalandclassicaldepictions of emotion. His subduedCatherine's Room2001, has many scene by scene parallels with Andrea di Bartolo's 1393St. Catherine of Siena Praying.

Viola's work has received critical accolades. CriticMarjorie Perloffsingles him out for praise. Writing at length about the necessity of poetic works responding to and taking advantage of contemporary computer technologies, Perloff sees Viola as an example of how new technology—in his case, the video camera—can create entirely newaestheticcriteria and possibilities that did not exist in previous incarnations of the genre — in this case, theater.

Video art projects

Bill Viola and Jamie Jewett discussing their technique

While many video artists have been quick to adopt new technologies to their medium, Viola relied little ondigital editing.Perhaps the most technically challenging part of his work, and that which has benefited most from the advances since his earliest pieces, is his use of extremeslow motion.

Reverse Television

Main article:Reverse Television

Reverse Television(1983) is a 15-minute montage of people watching video cameras as though they were televisions.

The Quintet Series

The Quintet Series(2000-2001) is a set of four separate videos that shows the unfolding expressions of five actors in slow motion so that details of their changing expressions can be detected. The work references EuropeanRenaissanceOld Masterssuch asHieronymous BoschandDieric Bouts

Collaboration with Nine Inch Nails

In 2000, Viola collaborated with theindustrial rockbandNine Inch Nailsand its lead singerTrent Reznorto create a video suite for the band's tour. Thetriptychmainly is focused on water imagery and was supposed to be integral with the songs that were played.

An Ocean Without a Shore

In 2007, Viola was invited back to the 52ndVenice Biennaleto present an installation calledAn Ocean Without a Shore,which was named after a quote fromIbn ʿArabī.The work consists of people standing in the foreground with nothing but black behind them. Each of them seem to produce gallons of water from themselves as if they were waterfalls. The water comes gushing out of their bodies as if they are being reborn. This main piece seems to creates the effect of appearing as a nearly transparent wall of glass. Viola described the piece in an interview as being "about the fragility of life, like the borderline between life and death is actually not a hard wall; it’s not to be opened with a lock and key, it's actually very fragile, very tenuous."

Observance

Observance(2002), is a work which may be taken partly as a response to theSeptember 11 attacks.The installation involves about four or five individuals in a small frame. Although cramped in this small space, they seem to not want to move out of it. One of the youngest individuals in the group comes forward to the front center of the crowd looking at something with an air of solace. In this action, the actions of the other individuals makes more sense. There is something foreboding and tragic in front of them.

The Tristan Project

In 2004, Viola embarked onThe Tristan Project.At the invitation of opera directorPeter Sellars,he created video sequences to be shown as a backdrop to the action on stage during the performance ofWagner's operaTristan und Isolde.Using his extreme slow motion, Viola's pieces used actors to portray the metaphorical story behind Wagner's story, seeing for example the first act as an extended ritual of purification in which the characters disrobe and wash themselves before finally plunging headlong into water together (in Wagner's story, the two characters maintain the facade of being indifferent to each other (necessary because Isolde is betrothed to Tristan's uncle) before, mistakenly believing they are going to die anyway, and reveal their true feelings). The piece was first performed in Los Angeles at Disney Hall on 3 separate evenings in 2004, one act at a time, then given complete performances at theBastille Operain Paris in April and in November 2005.The video pieces were later shown in London without Wagner's music in June to September 2006, at theHaunch of VenisonGallery and St. Olave's School, London. The Tristan project returned, both in music and video, to theDisney Hallin Los Angeles in April 2007, with further performances at New York City'sLincoln Centerin May 2007 and at theGergiev FestivalinRotterdam,The Netherlands, in September 2007.

The Night Journey

In 2005, he began working withTracy Fullertonand the Game Innovation Lab atUSCon theart game,The Night Journey,a project based on the universal story of an individual's mystic journey toward enlightenment.The game has presented at a number of exhibits worldwide as a work in progress.It was awarded Sublime Experience atIndieCade2008.

Bodies of Light

In October 2009, Viola's solo exhibition entitled "Bodies of Light" appeared at theJames Cohan Galleryin New York. Featured in the exhibition was Pneuma (1994), a projection of alternating images evoking the concept of fleeting memories. Also on view were several pieces from the Viola's ongoing "Transfiguration" series, which he evolved from his 2007 installation Ocean Without a Shore.

Other projects

In 2004, Viola began work on a new production ofRichard Wagner's operaTristan und Isolde,a collaboration with directorPeter Sellars,conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen,and executive producer Kira Perov. The opera premiered at theOpéra National de Parisin 2005 and Viola's video work was subsequently shown asLOVE/DEATH The Tristan Projectat the Haunch of Venison Gallery and St Olave's School, London, in 2006 and at theWalt Disney Concert Hall,Los Angeles in 2007..During 2007, theCentro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneoin Sevilla, organized an exhibition at thePalace of Charles Vin laAlhambra-Granada- in which Viola's work dialogues with the Fine Arts Collection of the museum.

Viola's Three Structures

Viola felt as if there are three different structures to describe patterns of data structures. There is the branching structure, matrix structure, and schizo structure.

"The most common structure is called branching. In this structure, the viewer proceeds from the top to bottom in time."The branching structure of presenting data is the typical narrative and linear structure. The viewer proceeds from a set point A to point B by taking an exact path, the same path any other reader would take. An example of this is Google because users go into this website with a certain mindset of what they want to search for, and they get a certain result as they branch off and end at another website.

The second structure is the Matrix structure. This structure describes media when it followsnonlinear progressionthrough information. The viewer could enter at any point, move in any direction, at any speed, pop in and out at any place.Like the branching structure, this also has its set perimeters. However, the exact path that is followed is up to the user. The user has the option of participating in decision-making that affect the viewing experience of the media. An example of this is Public Secrets, a website that reveals secrets of the justice and the incarceration system within the U.S. for women. There is a set boundary of what users can and cannot do while presenting them with different themes and subjects users are able to view. Different users will find themselves taking different paths, using flash cues to guide themselves through the website. This vast selection of paths presents many users with a unique viewing experience (in relation to that of the previous persons). As well, they have the choice to read the excerpts from these women or hear it out loud. This connects to Borges' "The Garden of Forking Paths"where the participant has a variety of choices on how they see a story unfold before them. Each time, they can create a different path.

The last structure is called the schizo, or thespaghetti model.This form of data structure pertains to pure or mostlyrandomness."Everything is irrelevant and significant at the same time. Viewers may become lost in this structure and never find their way out."

Awards

Viola was awarded the XXIstCataloniaInternational Prize in 2009. ThePremi Internacional Catalunyawas created by the autonomous government ofCatalonia,theGeneralitat de Catalunya,to be awarded to those who make notable contributions to the advancement of human, cultural, and scientific values.The award honors an individual "whose creative work has made a significant contribution to the development of cultural, scientific or human values anywhere in the world".

• 1984 Polaroid Video Art Award for outstanding achievement, US
• 1985Guggenheim Fellowshipfor Fine Arts, US
• 1987Maya Deren Award,American Film Institute, US
• 1989John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur FoundationAward, US
• 1993 Skowhegan Medal (Video Installation), US
• 1993 Medienkunstpreis, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, and Siemens Kulturprogramm, Germany
• 2000 Elected member ofAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2003 Cultural Leadership Award, American Federal of Arts, US
• 2006 NORD/LB Art Prize, Bremen, Germany
• 2006Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters,government of France
• 2009Eugene McDermottAward in the Arts, MIT, Cambridge, MAHe was awarded $75,000 and was able to go to MIT and help enhance the creative groups there.
• 2009Catalonia International Prize,Barcelona, Spain
• 2010 honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Liège,Belgium
• 2011Praemium Imperiale,Japan
• 2017 Elected as an Honorary Royal Academician by theRoyal Academy of Arts,UK

Books

• Viola, Bill, and Robert Violette (1995).Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: Writings 1973-1994.Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Print.ISBN9780262720250.OCLC32274380.
• Viola, Bill (2002).Going Forth by Day.New York:Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.Print.ISBN9780892072552.OCLC51451889.
• Viola, Bill, Peter Sellars, John Walsh, and Hans Belting (2003).Bill Viola: The Passions.Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the National Gallery, London. Print.ISBN9780892367139.OCLC50868268.
• Viola, Bill, and Jérôme Neutres (2014).Bill Viola: Paris, Grand Palais, Galeries Nationales, 5 Mars-21 Juillet 2014.Print.ISBN9782711861668.OCLC876749116.

See also

• List of video artists

Further reading

• Hanhardt, John G, Kira Perov, and Bill Viola.Bill Viola.2015. Print.OCLC907140211.
• Hanhardt, John G, Thomas A. Carlson, and Kira Perov.I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like.Philadelphia: The Barnes Foundation, 2019. Print.OCLC1055265333.
• Rogers, Holly."Acoustic Architecture: Music and Space in the Video Installations of Bill Viola"(subscription required).Twentieth Century Music,(2005) 2(2), pp. 197–219.ISSN1478-5722.
• Ross, David A, Peter Sellars, and Lewis Hyde.Bill Viola.New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1997. Print.OCLC37239009.
• Townsend, Chris, and Bill Viola.The Art of Bill Viola.London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Print.OCLC55917902.

External links

• Bill ViolaatIMDb
• Bill Violadiscography atDiscogs
• Bill Viola Interview: Cameras Are Keepers of the Souls—Video byLouisiana Channel