The Renaissance according to Bill Viola on display at Palazzo Strozzi from March 10

Bill Viola (New York, 1951), pioneer of video art and among the leading names incontemporary art, arrives in Italy, and to be precise in Florence, with a major retrospective entitled Bill Viola. Electronic Renaissance: the exhibition, running at Palazzo Strozzi from March 10 to July 23, 2017, aims to showcase a selection of works by the American artist from the 1970s to the present. The exhibition, set up in the Piano Nobile and the rooms of the Strozzina, also compares Bill Viola’s works with some paintings by great Renaissance artists (Masolino, Paolo Uccello, Lucas Cranach, Pontormo). For Bill Viola, this will be a “return to his origins”: the artist, in fact, between 1974 and 1976 served in the city as artistic director of art/tapes/22, a video production and documentation center founded and directed by Maria Gloria Bicocchi.

On the occasion of the exhibition (curated by Arturo Galansino, general director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, and Kira Perov, executive director of the Bill Viola Studio) an additional anthology of the artist’s works will be displayed in some of the main Florentine museums (Uffizi, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Museo di Santa Maria Novella) and will be placed in comparison with Renaissance works preserved there. Another work will instead be placed at the Museo della Collegiata di Sant’Andrea in Empoli.

“I am really happy,” said Bill Viola, “to recover my Italian roots and to have the opportunity to repay my debt to the city of Florence through my works. After living and working in Florence in the 1970s, I never imagined that I would have the honor of having such a great exhibition in such an important institution as Palazzo Strozzi.” The exhibition will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Thursdays until 11 p.m.). Entrance fee: 12 euros full price, 9.50 euros reduced, 4 euros for schools. Catalog published by Giunti.

Source: press release

Image: Bill Viola, The Greeting (1995; 10’22", Video-audio installation: color video projection on a large vertical screen installed on a wall in a darkened space; amplified stereo sound; performers: Angela Black, Suzanne Peters, Bonnie Snyder; Courtesy Bill Viola Studio)

The Renaissance according to Bill Viola on display at Palazzo Strozzi from March 10

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