Bio
American, born 1951, lives in Long Beach, California
Bill Viola earned his BFA from Syracuse University in 1973. He is regarded as a pioneer and leading artist in the field of video art. In addition to his selection as the representative from the United States at the 1995 Venice Biennale, his work has been the subject of many major museum exhibitions including a 25-year retrospective organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1997 (with a tour including the participation of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Art Institute of Chicago, among others). In 1989, Viola received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation award; previous awards include fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation (1982) and the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1985). He has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Syracuse University (1995), California College of Arts and Crafts (1998), and Massachusetts College of Art (1999).