Celebrating Bill Viola: Liber Insularum Video Installation

Bill Viola

MIAMI BEACH, Florida – December 6, 2012 – Tuesday evening luminaries from the art, music and fashion industries gathered together for an intimate dinner at Mr. Chow at the W Hotel in Miami Beach , hosted by Simon de Pury, celebrity auctioneer and Chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company; Bonnie Clearwater, Executive Director of MOCA, North Miami; Sandy Brant and Ingrid Sischy of Vanity Fair International; and Stella McCartney, fashion designer, in celebration of world-renowned video installation artist Bill Viola’s much anticipated exhibition Bill Viola: Liber Insularum at MOCA, North Miami.

The evening’s guests included: Bill Viola and Kira Perov, Tracey Emin, Bruce Weber and Nan Bush, Pharrell Williams, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Ermeneglido Zegna, Victor Alfaro, Eva and Michael Chow, Russell Simons, Christian Slater and Brittany Lopez, Anouck Lepere, Ella Cisneros, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Yvonne Force Villareal, Tiqui Atencio, Ondine de Rothschild, Stavros Merjos, Dr. Kira Flanzraich, Irma and Norman Braman, Douglas Cramer and Hugh Bush, Michael and Ninah Lynne, China Chow and Benedikt Taschen amongst others.

Bill Viola: Liber Insularum will begin its sole presentation in the United States at MOCA, North Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach, and will be on view at the museum from December 5, 2012 through March 3, 2013.

The exhibition, sponsored by Phillips de Pury & Company, Stella McCartney Art Net Worth, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is organized in collaboration with Bill Viola Studio and is curated by Roc Laseca.

Bill Viola is an iconic contemporary artist who draws from Eastern and Western spiritual traditions and is known for creating immersive video installations that explore such universally human subjects as birth, death, and the nature of consciousness.

His exhibition at MOCA North Miami is inspired by The Book of the Islands of the Archipelago, authored by the Florentine ecclesiastic Cristoforo Buondelmonti in the 15th century. The works featured in Liber Insularum (The Book of Islands) use this historic text as a reference point to engage with distinctly modern themes of spiritual isolation in a 21st-century global landscape.