Bill Viola, a pioneering figure in video art whose works profoundly shaped the medium’s place in contemporary art, passed away on 12 July at his home in Long Beach, California. He was 73. The cause was complications related to Alzheimer’s disease, as confirmed by the James Cohan Gallery.
Born in 1951, Viola was renowned for his innovative approach to video art, centring his work on the exploration of human consciousness and fundamental experiences such as birth, death, and spirituality. His deep investigations drew upon mystical traditions from Zen Buddhism to Islamic Sufism and Western devotional art from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His videos often juxtaposed themes of life and death, light and dark, noise and silence, immersing viewers in rich sensory environments using cutting-edge technologies.
Over a career spanning four decades, Viola became a globally recognised artist, transcending geographical boundaries. He played a crucial role in establishing video as a vital contemporary art form, significantly expanding its technological, conceptual, and historical boundaries. His work, including videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances, flat panel video pieces, and works for television broadcasts, is a testament to his international influence. His installations, which envelop viewers in total environments of image and sound, are showcased in museums and galleries worldwide and are part of numerous prestigious collections.
Viola’s single-channel videotapes have been widely broadcast and presented cinematically. His writings have been extensively published and translated for international audiences. Through video, he explored the phenomena of sense perception as a pathway to self-knowledge, focusing on universal human experiences and drawing from both Eastern and Western art and spiritual traditions.
Viola graduated with a BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973, where he studied visual art with Jack Nelson and electronic music with Franklin Morris. In the 1970s, he spent 18 months in Florence, Italy, as the technical director of production for Art/Tapes/22, one of Europe’s first video art studios. He travelled extensively, studying and recording traditional performing arts in the Solomon Islands, Java, Bali, and Japan.
From 1976 to 1980, Viola served as artist-in-residence at the WNET Channel 13 Television Laboratory in New York, creating works that premiered on television. During this period, he met and married cultural arts director Kira Perov, who became his lifelong collaborator. Together, they travelled the world, capturing video footage in diverse locations such as the Sahara Desert, the American Southwest, and Dharamsala, India, where they recorded a prayer blessing with the Dalai Lama.
Viola’s collaborations extended to music. He performed with avant-garde composer David Tudor and created videos to accompany compositions by Edgard Varèse and the rock group Nine Inch Nails. He also collaborated with director Peter Sellars and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen on a production of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” which premiered at the Opéra National de Paris in 2005.
Viola’s work has been exhibited globally, including notable exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Venice Biennale. His ambitious projects, such as “Going Forth By Day” and “The Passions,” have been showcased in major institutions like the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Bill Viola’s contributions to art have been recognised with numerous awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1989, the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government in 2006, the XXI Catalonia International Prize in Barcelona in 2009, and the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale art award in 2011. He was elected an Honorary Royal Academician in 2017.
Viola leaves a legacy of transformative video art that continues influencing and inspiring. He is survived by his wife, Kira Perov, and their two sons.
Photo: Alessandro Moggi Courtesy Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi