Bill Viola
1951–2024
A pioneer of video art, Bill Viola is known for his technical and artistic mastery of the medium and for a body of work that traverses the visual language of painting, electronic art, and cinema. While studying painting and music at Syracuse University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Viola discovered video and experimented in his early work with its unique properties. In time he would move from single-channel videotapes to explorations of large-scale projected imagery and immersive soundscapes in groundbreaking gallery- based installations that helped to redefine video as an art form.
Throughout his career, Viola has embraced aspects of spirituality, from Zen Buddhism to Sufi mysticism. By manipulating the experience of time in his videos, he often evokes a state of transcendence or altered consciousness. Each of the five projected images in the operatic Five Angels for the Millennium—titled “Departing Angel,” “Birth Angel,” “Fire Angel,” “Ascending Angel,” and “Creation Angel”—depicts an aquatic scene with a figure emerging from or descending into the water. As Viola has explained: “The human figure arrives intermittently as a powerful explosion of light and sound that interrupts an otherwise peaceful, nocturnal underwater landscape. Because the sequences run in slow motion, and are further altered by running backwards and forwards or right-side-up and upside-down, the image is read in unexpected ways, and the disorientation becomes an essential aspect of the work’s theme.” The sensorial effect is overwhelming as Viola invites the viewer to consider how art might produce a ritualistic, sacred, or symbolic experience.
Introduction
William John Viola Jr. (US: VY-oh-lə, UK: VEE-oh-lə; January 25, 1951 – July 12, 2024) was an American video artist whose artistic expression depended upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, death, and aspects of consciousness.
Wikidata identifier
Q437616
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 22, 2025.
Introduction
Considered one of the masters of video art since the 1970s, having mounted many exhibitions that have been considered technically innovative.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, installation artist, video artist
ULAN identifier
500092205
Names
Bill Viola, William Viola, Jr. William John Viola
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 22, 2025.
