Bill Morrison
New York, NY
Bill Morrison’s films and videos have been screened in theaters, museums and concert halls worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Museum of Modern Art, Royal Festival Hall, Tate Modern and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Retrospectives of his work have been organized in Buenos Aires, Cork, Houston, Los Angeles, London, Montreal, New York, New Zealand, Paris, San Francisco and Vienna. He has created films to accompany live performances of music by some of the most important composers of our time, including John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Richard Einhorn, Bill Frisell, Michael Gordon, Henryk Gorecki, David Lang, Harry Partch, Todd Reynolds, Steve Reich and Julia Wolfe. Morrison is a Guggenheim fellow and has received the Alpert Award for the Arts, an NEA Creativity Grant and a fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. His work with Ridge Theater has been recognized with two Bessie awards and an Obie Award. His Creative Capital project, Decasia, is described by J. Hoberman of the Village Voice as “the most widely acclaimed American avant-garde film of the fin-de-siècle.”Bill Morrison is an American, New York-based filmmaker and artist. His films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music
Decasia
Bill Morrison is a filmmaker and artist whose films often combine rare archival material set to contemporary music.
Artist BioDecasia, an 80-minute film created from restored nitrate footage re-photographed onto 35mm, uses decaying found footage from the early days of film to investigate the human desire to transcend the limitations of earthbound existence. The abstract scenario follows the course of a life-cycle, beginning with 1927 footage by Sergei Eisenstein of a cesarean section and live birth, and includes shots from a mission school where Native Americans were taught discipline by nuns in foreboding black shawls. The score for Decasia was composed by Bang On A Can co-founder Michael Gordon, and the work was initially screened with live accompaniment by the Basel Sinfonietta in November 2001.