In 1995, his exhibition "Buried Secrets" at the Venice Biennale was a sensation. Bill Viola, a New Yorker appointed to represent the United States, signaled a watershed moment in contemporary languages. His "buried secrets" video and sound installations demonstrated to the world that physical art needed to deal with digital art and new technological tools. Viola died two days ago at the age of 73 in his Long Beach home, and his death has sparked strong emotions in Italy. The world is losing one of the most influential modern artists. Bill Viola, known as the father of video art or even the Caravaggio of video art, frequently drew inspiration from Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque art. He was introduced to Naples by Studio Trisorio in 1982 in a group exhibition and has since exhibited in Castel dell'Ovo (2003) and Capodimonte (2010, 2011). His most recent visit was in 2022, to the evocative spaces of Toledo's seventeenth-century Church of Carminiello. His "martyrs" found hospitality at the "Return to Life" exhibition. In 1996, the year after that of the legendary exhibition at the Biennale, it was the Royal Palace of Caserta that hosted it, as part of the collective exhibition "More than real". Above all, his relationship with Florence was intense. After graduating from Syracuse University's Experimental Studios, he decided to further his understanding of Italian culture by visiting the "cradle of the Renaissance", the birthplace of some of the painters who would have the greatest influence on his language. He held an exceptional retrospective at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in 2017. His interest in Italian art stemmed from his origins: his surname denounced his roots, and he preferred to pronounce it in Italian rather than English.
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