Bill Fontana (born April 25, 1947 in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

) is known internationally for his pioneering experiments in

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

Life and career

Fontana attended the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

and studied both

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. He traveled to Australia, and also stayed in Japan and Germany composing. Fontana began making

sound sculpture Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary time-based medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBell ...

s in 1976. In a career spanning 40 years, Fontana's sound sculptures use the urban environment as a living source of musical information, all with the potential to conjure up visual imagery in the mind of the listener. He has made works all over the world and has presented his sound sculptures extensively, including at the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

(1999), the

Museo Reina Sofia Museo may refer to: * ''Museum'' (2018 film), Mexican drama heist film * Museo station, station on line 1 of the Naples Metro {{disambiguation ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

(1995), The

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, New York (1991),

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London (2006),

Madison Square Park Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United St ...

, New York (2007), and the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

(1987, 1997, 2010). Some of his more famous works include ''Distant Trains,'' ''Satellite Ear Bridge Cologne-San Francisco,'' ''Journey Through My Sound Sculptures,'' ''The Sound of an Unblown Flute'', ''Panoramic Echoes'' an
"Acoustical Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge"
In 2005, Fontana was an Artadia Awardee. Fontana recently won the

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria ...

Collide@CERN Prize, 2012–2013 where is developing a sound sculpture at CERN in Geneva called "Acoustic Time Travel" to be realized in September 2014 for the 60th Anniversary of CERN.

References

External links

Bill Fontana's website

Work in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art collection

SFMOMA Bay Area Treasure Award

''San Jose Mercury'' article

Bill Fontana biography on Media Art Net
20th-century American classical composers American male classical composers 21st-century American classical composers Living people 1947 births American sound artists Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Artists from Cleveland 20th-century American male musicians 21st-century American male musicians American people of Italian descent {{US-composer-20thC-stub