Because we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.
BILL VIOLABecause we live in an industrialized, fast-paced world that prefers that the soul remain asleep.
BILL VIOLAYou are just as qualified as any expert to make a judgment and have a feeling or a response to any work of art.
BILL VIOLAThe human brain is probably one of the most complex single objects on the face of the earth; I think it is, quite honestly.
BILL VIOLAI hope we’ll be able to see that in our lifetime: the end of the camera! When I’m in Paris, I’ll buy a big bottle of champagne and I’ll save it for that day, for the day when they’ll be no more camera.
BILL VIOLAI would prefer to be forgotten, then rediscovered in a different age.
BILL VIOLAI don’t believe in originality in art. I think we exist on this earth to inspire each other, through our actions, through our deeds, and through who we are. We’re always borrowing.
BILL VIOLAWhen I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional – a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful.
BILL VIOLAIt only takes a second for an impression to become a vision.
BILL VIOLAI like to keep the meanings in my work flowing and open.
BILL VIOLAHuman beings have always been creative. The guys who were making the pyramids, and archaeological research has showed us this, had little figurines made by the workers, to express their devotion to their god.
BILL VIOLAA lot of what making art is, is just being open, and empty. And putting yourself in the right place for things to, literally, come together.
BILL VIOLAIn the mid- to late ’60s to the mid-’70s, when I was a student, there was a major change in the thinking about what art can be and how art is made.
BILL VIOLAVision connects you. But it also separates you. In my work, and my life, I feel a desire to merge. Not in terms of losing my own identity… but theres a feeling that life is interconnected, that theres life in stones and rocks and trees and dirt, like there is in us.
BILL VIOLAThe electronic image is not fixed to any material base and, like our DNA, it has become a code that can circulate to any container that will hold it, defying death as it travels at the speed of light.
BILL VIOLAI came of age at the end of the 1960s, just when video was also coming into the world. Companies such as Sony and Panasonic were starting to market it and we artists immediately knew how it could be used.
BILL VIOLAWhen the water in the bowl finally reaches the same level as the water outside, there is no longer any need for the container, and it drops away as the inner water merges with the outside water.
BILL VIOLA