Bill Viola

Born in New York in 1951, Bill Viola is an American video artist. He studied visual arts at Syracuse University in New York but did not find himself in traditional art forms and decided to try video art. More interested in music, he took electronic music courses and approached video more in terms of signal than image. The artist is one of the pioneers of video art and its most famous representative. He has played a leading role in establishing video as a contemporary art medium and has expanded its use in terms of content, technology, and reach.

During his career, the artist has produced architectural video installations, films on videotapes, electronic music performances, sound environments, works for television and cinema... He produces video using a wide range of compositions and various media, and his work is all the more rich and diversified. His video installations are more than just means of seeing, they are environments in themselves that immerse the viewer in an atmosphere created by the artist. Made with state-of-the-art technologies, Bill Viola emphasizes their simplicity and precision. Video is a way for the artist to explore sensory perception, a means of self-knowledge. His work explores human experiences, death, birth, development of consciousness... His inspiration is rooted in Eastern and Western art but also in spiritual traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Islamic Sufism and Christian mysticism. Each spectator draws their own experience from his installations, as collective memory and individual consciousness are combined in his pieces.

He employs numerous techniques in order to overcome the limits of our perception: optical systems normally used for scientific purposes such as macro lenses, self-made camera systems with mirrors, motors, and mechanics.

In 1995, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale. He exhibits The Greeting, inspired by the Visitation of the painter Pontormo. Through this piece, Bill Viola seeks to explore our relationship with time. Indeed, while time seems frozen, he animates the images, the painting itself, giving life to the characters. It is through movement that the artist manages to bring time back to life. This work was the first video artwork acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The exhibition "The Passions" at the National Gallery in London was the first exhibition in the museum to be dedicated to a contemporary artist. In March 2014, he exhibited more than twenty monumental works at the Grand Palais in Paris, in his first retrospective in France.

Bill Viola has received numerous awards for his achievements, including the MacArthur Foundation scholarship (1989), the XXI International Prize of Catalonia (2009) and the Premium Imperial of the Japan Art Association (2011).