Viola, Bill

American, 1951 - 2024

BiographyBill Viola created immersive video installations that converge Eastern and Western art, mysticism, and spiritual traditions to create mesmeric representations of universal human experiences. Ocean Without a Shore, in the Museum of Contemporary Photography collection, is a still from a larger installation that was first presented in a 15th century church of San Gallo in Venice, Italy. Three video screens were displayed as people passed through a sheet of cascading water as a visual manifestation of what Viola himself described as “the notion of our dead coming back to our world, just temporarily.” They begin as blurry, monochromatic figures until they pass through the water and then snap into sharp focus. This particular image captures the moment just after transformation as the subject steps through the invisible threshold to be bathed in color and light.

Ocean Without a Shore is one of thirteen prints featured in the portfolio, America: Now and Here, which was produced in 2009 in conjunction with a traveling exhibition of the same name. Both aim to start a dialogue about American identity post-9/11. Its introductory essay, A Calamity of Heart, was written by E.L. Doctorow and commissioned by the project’s curator, Eric Fischl, to serve as an introduction to the collected works and their intention to, as Doctorow wrote, serve as “the groundsong for our time of a diverse, still vibrantly alive society.” Doctorow’s prose is a call to action in restoring the celebration of expressive freedom. Other artists in the portfolio include Ross Bleckner, Chuck Close, Ralph Gibson, April Gornik, Sally Mann, Vik Muniz, Lou Reed, David Salle, Andres Serrano, and Laurie Simmons.

Bill Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University (1973) where he studied visual arts and music. He spent the mid 70s in Florence, Italy, where he worked as a technical director for the pioneer video studio, Art/Tapes/22. He completed artists’ residencies with WNET Channel 13 Television Laboratory in New York, Sony Corporation’s Atsugi Laboratories in Tokyo, and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Music remained central to Viola’s practice. He performed and collaborated with composers such as David Tudor, Edgard Varèse’ Déserts, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, among others. In 1995, he represented the US at the 46th Venice Biennale with his Buried Secrets installation. The Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1997 exhibition Bill Viola: A 25-Year Survey travelled for two years across six museums. He completed an ambitious commission for Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin and the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2002 called Going Forth By Day. Viola is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1989 and the Catalonia International Prize, Barcelona, Spain in 2009. He was also elected as an Honorary Royal Academician by the Royal Academy of Arts, UK in 2017. Viola passed away in July 2024.