Bill Morrison
Filmmaker and Painter
Born Chicago, IL, 11/17/65
BFA Cooper Union School of Art, 1989
Lives in New York City
Biography
Award-winning filmmaker Bill Morrison has eight titles in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, including “Light Is Calling”, “Decasia” and “The Film of Her”. His work has been screened at The Tate Modern, Lincoln Center, The Whitney Museum, London’s ICA, MassMOCA, Carnegie Hall, The Wexner Center, BAM, The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and the Maya Stendhal Gallery in New York. His projected set work with the acclaimed performance ensemble Ridge Theater has been recognized with two “Bessie” awards for excellence in theatrical design (1993, 2003) and a Village Voice “Obie” for collaborative design (2001). Bill has received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, The 2004 NEA Creativity Grant, NYSCA, NYFA and Creative Capital. “Decasia”, his feature-length collaboration with composer Michael Gordon, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and on the Sundance Channel in 2002. The film was released theatrically in 2003, on DVD in 2004, and was named one of the ten best films of 2003 (#3) by J. Hoberman of the
Village Voice.
Screenings and Awards
Outerborough (2005)
Museum of Modern Art, New York, January 2005 (Commission and World premiere) Tribeca Film Festival, New York, April 2005
Viennale, Vienna, October 2005
Gotham (2004)
Live with American Composers Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, New York February 2004 (World premiere)
Live with the London Sinfoneitta, Royal Festival Hall, London March 2005 (International premiere)
Light Is Calling (2004)
Best Film, 20th Interfilm Berlin International Short Film Festival, November 2004
Canal Plus Award and Audience Award, L’Etrange Festival, Paris, September 2004
Jurors’ Choice – Black Maria Film Festival, 2004
23rd Sundance Film Festival, January 2004 (World premiere)
Acquired by the Museum of Modern Art,
Screened at MoMA as part of New Works/New Acquisitions, August 2005
The Mesmerist (2003)
Margaret Mead Film And Video Festival, November 2003 (World premiere)
Live with Bill Frisell Trio – World Financial Center Winter Garden, NY, January 2004
Acquired by the Museum of Modern Art
Screened at MoMA as part of New Works/New Acquisitions, August 2005
Decasia (2002)M
Live with basel sinfonietta, Basel, Switzerland, November 4-5, 2001
Live with Tactus Modern Ensemble, Brooklyn, NY, September 9-12, 2004,
21st Sundance Film Festival 2002 (World premiere)
31st International Film Festival Rotterdam 2002
Acquired by Museum of Modern Art; Nederlands Filmmuseum, Library of Congress
The Film of Her (1997)
First Place, Experimental – USA Film Festival, 1997
Gold Award, Experimental – New York Expo of Short Film and Video, 1997
Jurors’ Choice – Black Maria Film Festival, 1998
Silver Conch, Short Fiction – Mumbai International Film Festival, India, 1998
Best Documentary – Mediawave, Hungary, 1998
Acquired by Museum of Modern Art, Nederlands Filmmuseum, and Library of Congress
The Death Train (1993)
Dance Theater Workshop Bessie Award for Excellence In Visual Design, 1993
Best Film – Viper Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland, 1994
Permanent Collection – Museum of Modern Art
Exhibited – Whitney Museum of American Art, The American Century, 1950-2000.
Footprints (1992)
Silver Hugo Award – Chicago Film Festival, October 1992
Jurors’ Choice – Black Maria Film Festival, 1992
Permanent Collection – Museum of Modern Art
Grants, Fellowships, & Awards
Cooper Union School Of Art – 4 Year Scholarship, New York, BFA 1989
Gerrit Rietveld Academie – 1 Year Scholarship, Amsterdam 1989
Dance Theater Workshop “Bessie” Award, 1993
Fabrica – 1 Year Fellowship sponsored by the Benetton Corporation, Italy, 1995-6
MacDowell Colony Residency, New Hampshire, 2000
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2000-1
New York Foundation for the Arts, 2001
Creative Capital, 2001
Village Voice “Obie” Award, 2001
Ucross Foundation Residency, 2003
Dance Theater Workshop “Bessie” Award, 2003
NYSCA, Individual Artist Grant, 2003
Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Fellowship, 2003
NEA – Creativity Grant, 2004
Acadia Summer Arts Program, 2004
Teaching Experience
University of South Carolina, Associate Professor Media Arts, Fall 2000
California Institute of the Arts, Workshop, Fall 2002
Anderson Ranch, Workshop, July 2005
Juries
Black Maria Film and Video Festival 1998
Viper Film Video and New Media Festival, Switzerland, 2000
Ann Arbor Film Festival 2004
Ucross Foundation 2004 – 2007
Selected Solo Shows
Collected Works – Museum Of Modern Art – New York, March 1995
Collected Works – Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes – Buenos Aires, November 1997
Collected Works – Anthology Film Archives – New York, April/May 1998
Collected Works – Scratch – Paris, November 1998
Collected Works – Institute of Contemporary Art – London, November 1998
“Decasia Live” European Music Month – Basel, November 2001
“Decasia” Sundance Film Festival – Park City, UT, January 2002
“Decasia” Museum of Modern Art – New York, May 2002
“Decasia” Film Forum, Egyptian Theater – Los Angeles, October 2002
“Decasia” Anthology Film Archives – New York, March 2003
“Decasia” Facets Multimedia – Chicago, June 2003
“Decasia” Detroit Film Theater – Detroit, September 2003
“Decasia” Tate Modern – London, October 2003
Recent work – Maya Stendhal Gallery – New York, November 2003 – January 2004
Collected Works – L’Etrange Festival, Forum des Images – Paris, September 2004
“Decasia Live” St. Ann’s Warehouse – Brooklyn, September 2004
Collected Works – Viennale – Vienna, October 2004
“Gotham” Carnegie Hall, New York, February 2004
“Gotham” Royal Festival Hall, London, March 2005
“Shelter” Radio Hall, Cologne and Philharmonie, Essen, March 2005
Collected Works – New Zealand Film Festival, July 2005
Recent work – Maya Stendhal Gallery – New York, October 2005
“Shelter” Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival – Brooklyn, November 2005
“Decasia Live” Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, March 2006
“Decasia Live” Haydn Saal – St. Pölten, Austria, May 2006
Selected Bibliography
Village Voice, October 26th, 1993, Vol. 38, No. 43
“Views from Nearby” by Manohla Dargis,
SF Weekly, November 25th, 1997, Vol. 16, No. 41
“The Exquisite Cinema of Bill Morrison” by Gregg Rickman,
LA Weekly, September 17th, 1998
“The Film of Her” by Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
Exploding No. 2, Le Ralenti; May 1999 (Paris)
“Archéologie: Bill Morrison” by Laure Bergala and Emeric de Lastens
The Moving Image, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 2001
“Archives and Archivists Remade: The Film of Her” by Gabriel M. Paletz
Variety, February 4-10, 2002
“Sundance in Brief – Decasia” by Dennis Harvey
Senses of Cinema, March-April 2002
“The 21st Sundance Film Festival – A Report” by Bérénice Reynaud
The New York Times, December 3rd, 2002
“Where a Film’s Gooey Bits Are the Real Showstoppers” by Sarah Boxer
The New York Times Magazine, December 22nd, 2002
“Sublime Decay” by Lawrence Weschler
The New York Times, December 27t, 2002
“Composing a Varied Collage Out of Decomposing Film” by Anita Gates
Millimeter, February 1st, 2003
“Decasia the State of Decay” by Darroch Greer
Village Voice, March 19-25, 2003
“The Art of Destruction: Back to Nature” by J. Hoberman
Time Out New York, March 20-27, 2003
“Decasia” by Andrew Lewis Conn
Libération, June 15, 2003
“Rencontre avec CONTACT _Con-481DFD031 Bill Morrison” by Elisabeth Lebovici
The Guardian (UK), September 26th, 2003
“Ghost World” by Jonathan Jones
Detroit Free Press, September 28th, 2003
“Movie Finds Beauty in Celluloid’s Decay” by John Monaghan
Sight & Sound, December 2003
“Decasia” by Tony Rayns
The New York Times, February 7th, 2004
“After the Decay of Decay, a New Modernity” by Herbert Muschamp
NY Arts, Vol. 9, No. 3/4, March-April 2004
“The Story of ‘Decasia'” by Catherine Wayland
Art Forum, May 2004
“Bill Morrison at Maya Stendhal Gallery” by Elizabeth Schambelan
Vertigo (UK), Summer 2004, Issue 7
“Interview with Bill Morrison” by Chris Darke
The New York Times, September 11th, 2004
“From Dying Movies, the Birth of a Score” by Allan Kozinn
The New Yorker, November 8th, 2004
“America, the Baleful” by Alex Ross
American Anthropologist, December 2004, Vol. 108, No. 4
“The Orphanista Manifesto” by Emily Cohen
The Moving Image, Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 2005
“Decasia: The State of Decay” by Cindi Rowell
Harry Stendhal
