Robert Wilson
Director | Actor
photo Ling Jing Yuan
Robert Wilson (born 1941, USA) is among the world’s foremost theater and visual artists. The New York Times described Robert Wilson as ‘a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage’. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide. After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson founded the New York-based performance collective The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds in the mid-1960s and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974–1975). With Philip Glass, he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). Wilson’s artistic collaborators include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed and Jessye Norman. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Brecht’s and Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Goethe’s Faust, La Fontaine’s Fables and Homer’s Odyssey. Wilson’s drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group showings, and his works are held in private collections and museums throughout the world.
Robert Wilson has been honoured with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts. France pronounced him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and Officer of the Legion of Honour; Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit. Wilson is the founder and artistic director of the Watermill Center, a laboratory for the Arts in Water Mill.
