To inaugurate the newly designed and expanded SCAD Museum of Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design is pleased to present Bill Viola’s video installation, The Crossing.
Co‐commissioned by SCAD in 1996, Bill Viola's The Crossing premiered at the university and since has been shown throughout the world. Rich in metaphor and based on common spiritual beliefs of the East and West, The Crossing poetically reveals the cycles and dualities of life through the universal symbols of fire and water. This canonical work is indicative of Viola’s ability to convey extraordinary complexity via simple action and expert use of scale and sound—characteristics that have established him as a leading figure in video and new media art for more than three decades.
With a career spanning more than four decades, Bill Viola is truly a pioneering force in video art. The Crossing was co‐commissioned by SCAD in 1996 and has since been exhibited around the world. Rich in metaphor and grounded in shared spiritual beliefs of the East and West, this canonical video art celebrates Viola's singular ability to convey complex themes with scale and sound.
Bill Viola holds a B.F.A. in experimental studies from Syracuse University. He received a 1989 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, served as an appointed scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 1998 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000. He is a longtime faculty member of the School of Film/Video at the California Institute of the Arts.
