ROBERT WILSON

BIOGRAPHY

Described by The New York Times as “a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage,” Robert Wilson’s numerous awards and honors include the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001) and the Prestigious Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (2002).

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson was educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, where his focus was architecture and design. By 1968 he had formed the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, and worked and performed with the group in a loft building at 147 Spring Street in lower Manhattan. In 1969 two of Wilson’s major productions appeared in New York City: The King of Spain at the Anderson Theater, and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

In 1971 Wilson received international acclaim for the revolutionary Deafman Glance, a silent opera created in collaboration with Raymond Andrews, a talented deaf-mute boy whom Wilson had adopted. After the Paris premiere of the work, French Surrealist Louis Aragon wrote of Wilson, “he is what we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us.”

In 1976 Wilson collaborated with composer Philip Glass to write the landmark piece Einstein on the Beach, which was presented at the Festival d’Avignon and at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, and has since been revived in two world tours. In the early 1980's Wilson developed what still stands as his most ambitious project: the multi-national epic the CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down. Although the full epic was never seen in its entirety, the work was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Over the last two decades Wilson has also brought his unique vision to traditional dramatic and operatic repertoire, designing and directing operas at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra Bastille and many others, including Wagner's The Ring, Parsifal and Lohengrin, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. He has also presented innovative adaptations of works by writers such as Virginia Woolf, Henrik Ibsen, and Gertrude Stein. Throughout his career, Wilson has collaborated with a diverse assortment of artists, including Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, William S. Burroughs, David Byrne, Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg, Jessye Norman and Susan Sontag. His most recent works for the stage include Wagner’s The Ring with conductor Christoph Eschenbach (2005-6) and Bach’s The Passion of St. John, which premiered in 2007 at the Châtelet in Paris.

While known universally for his highly acclaimed theatrical pieces, Wilson's work is firmly rooted in the fine arts, and major Wilson exhibitions have appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston; and the Instituto de Valencia de Arte Moderno. Wilson has created original installations for the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1993); London’s Clink Street Vaults (1995), and the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (1997). In 2007, Paula Cooper Gallery and Phillips de Pury & Co in New York held exhibitions of his most recent artistic venture, the VOOM Portraits, with subjects including Gao Xingjian, Winona Ryder, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Brad Pitt. The exhibition later opened at the ACE Gallery in Los Angeles. His drawings, prints, videos and sculpture are held in private collections and museums throughout the world. He is represented by the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York City, and is the artist-in-residence for VOOM HD.

Wilson is also the founder and artistic director of the Watermill Center, where each summer Wilson hosts students and professional artists from around the world at the International Summer Arts Program – an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities. In July of 2006, the Watermill Center dedicated a new building on its grounds, including rehearsal spaces, dormitories and residences, and inaugurated a year-round programming schedule. During the 2006-7 season, the Center hosted over a hundred artists in 14 diverse residencies. Robert Wilson is the subject of the recent documentary Absolute Wilson.