Bill
Viola

The undisputed master of video art, Bill Viola combines intimacy and monumentality, theatricality and spirituality in his work. His key themes include life, death, the elements (fire in Fire Woman, water in Tristan's Ascension, 2005) and dreams. Since the early 1970s, the American artist has blazed a unique trail that emphasises emotion and in the continuity of art history and the great Renaissance masters. 

Viola's installations solicit the eye, the ear and the whole body, immersing viewers in a full sensory and metaphysical experience. These “images without representation”, as Chiara Cappelletto puts it, have a pictorial aesthetic. An example is the video Going Forth By Day (2002), which overruns the space and suggests new mythologies. 

Several museums of international stature have hosted retrospectives of Viola's work. The Collection presented his work for the first time at the 2008 “Passage du Temps” (“Passage of Time”) show at the Tri Postal in Lille. 
Passage into Night was projected in 2021 in the Church of Saint-Eustache, Paris, as part of the Nuit Blanche.