BILL FONTANA

Tel 415 345 8655, Fax 415 345 8656

Email: bfontana@resoundings.org

Born: Cleveland, Ohio, 1947

Resides: San Francisco

Education: New School for Social Research, New York, B.A. 1970

Cleveland Institute of Music, 1967

John Carroll University, Cleveland, 1965-67

Awards: Prix Ars Electronica, 2009, Linz, Golden Nica Award in the Digiital Music Category

Fellowships: • Center for Cultural Innovation, Investing in Artists Grant, 2007

• Artadia 2005 San Francisco Bay Area Award

• Research Fellowship,Arts Council of England, 2004-2005

• Artists Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1990-91

• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1986-87

• US/Japan Fellowship, Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, 1985-86

• Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, 1983-84

• Composers Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, 1979

Web Site: www.resoundings.org

Teaching: University of Birmingham, UK, Department of Electro-Acoustic Music, 2004-2005

Academy of Media Arts, Cologne ( 2000 to 2003)

San Francisco Art Institute, 1995-1997

Sorbonne, Paris (1994-95)

Gallery: Haunch of Venison, London

Selected Commissions and Sound Sculptures:

· Tyne Soundings, Baltic Center for Contemporary Art and Sage Gateshead, Newcastle, 2009

· Spiraling Echoes, San Francisco Art Commission, 2009

· Speeds ot Time, Tate Britain, London, 2008

· Objective Sound, Western Bridge, Seattle, 2007

· Panoramic Echoes, Madison Square Park, New York, 2007

· Harmonic Bridge, Tate Modern, London, 2006

· Sound Lines, Dark Arches in Leeds, 2005

· Speeds of Tiime, Palace of Westminster, London, 2004

· Primal Soundings, Leeds City Gallery and Contemporary Art Society, 2004

· Speeds of Time, BBC, London, 2003

· Falling Echoes, Creative Time, New York, 2002

· Acoustical Visions of Venice, 48^th Venice Biennale, 1999

· Wave Memories, Trafalgar Square, National Maritime Museum, London, 1999

· Time Fountain, Fundació Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, & Reina Sofia, Madrid, 1995

· Sound Island, Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 1994

· Soundbridge Cologne - Kyoto, 1993 - simultaneously installed in Cologne and Kyoto at the Museum Ludwig and National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto

· Vertical Water, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1991

· Landscape Soundings, Vienna Festival, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1990

· Sound Sculptures through the Golden Gate, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1987

· Entfernte Züge (Distant Trains), Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, West Berlin, 1984

· Oscillating Steel Grids along the Brooklyn Bridge, World Trade Center and Brooklyn Museum, New York, 1983

· Sound Recycling Sculpture, Akademie der Künste, West Berlin and Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, s1980

· Sound Sculpture with Resonators, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1978

· Kirribilli Wharf, Australian Broadcasting Corp and Sydney Opera House, 1977

Selected Permanent Installations and Works in Collections

· Sonic Passage, San Antonio River Foundation,San Antonio, Texas, 2009

· Acoustic Journey, Cultural Mile Project, Enschede, the Netherlands, 2009

· Pigeon Soundings, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany, 2007

· Objective Sound, Western Bridge, Bill and Ruth True Foundation, Seattle, 2007

· Spiraling Sound Axis, Weatherspoon Art Museum,, University of North Carolina Greeensboro, 2007

· Natural Song Lines, Kent County Courthouse, Providence, Rhode Island, 2007

· Primal Soundings, Leeds City Gallery and Contemporary Art Society, 2004

· Musical Information Network Lyon, Lyon Tramway Line 1, 2001

· Echo Phases, Simeon Properties Emeryville Tech Center, Emeryville, CA 2000

· Wave Phases at Chesil Beach, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, U.K., 1999

· Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings, 1982/1997, digitally remastered eight-channel installation, collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

· Wave Trains, 1996, Mülheimer Brücke subway station, Colgone, Germany

· Earth Tones, 1992, Oliver Ranch, Sonoma County, CA

Selected Environmental Sund Recording and Sound Design Projects:

• Sound Design for a pavilion designed by Foster and Partners for London Architecture Week in 2008
• Sonic Landscaping, NBBJ Design, Seattle, 2004-2006
• Ants, Sounds of the Rainforest of Trinidad and Army Ant Habitats, California Academy of Science, 2004
• Antigone, Dusseldorf Schauspiel Haus, 2002
• Sounds of the British Coast, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, England, 1997 to 1999
• Sounds of the Old City of Jerusalem, DAAD Berlin, 1995 to 1996
• Australian Rainforests, Australian Broadcasting Commission, 1988
• Farallon Island Soundscapes, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, 1988
• Sounds of Hawaii, Hawaii Public Radio, Honolulu, 1986
• Acoustic Journey, An Investigation of Traditional Japanese Sounds on the Verge of Extinction, Wacoal Art Center, Tokyo, 1985
• Rainforests of Thailands, Jungle World Exhibit, New York Zoological Society, 1984
• Soundscapes, 365 Four Minute Radio Programs on Environmental Sound, National Public Radio, 1982 to 1983
• Wild California, Natural Sounds of California, Oakland Museum Natural Sciences Department,

1979

• Australian Sound Studies, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1973 to 1978

Selected Bibliography:

• Alan Riding, “The Sound Artist Bill Fontana Amplifies the Tate Modern’s Millennium Bridge”, New York Times and International Herald Tribune, June 20, 2006
• Jøran Rudi, “From a Musical Point of View, the World is Musical at any Given Moment” an Interview with Bill Fontana, Journal of Organized Sound, Volume 10.2, Cambridge University Press, 2005
• Robert Riley, “Bill Fontana – Speeds of Time”, Haunch of Venison, London, 2005
• Julian Crowley, Interview with Bill Fontana, The Wire, London , April ,2004
• Mary Blume, "Portrait of Bill Fontana," International Herald Tribune, July 9, 1994
• Bill Fontana, The Relocation of Ambient Sound, Leonardo Volume 20 # 2, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1987 and republished in Volume 41, Issue 2, 2008
• John Rockwell, "Sound Island," New York Times, June 18, 1994
• John Hanhardt, Heidi Grundmann, and Werner Fenz, Landscape Soundings, Vienna Festival, Vienna, 1990

Bill Fontana References:

Sheena Wagstaff

Chief Curator

Tate Modern

Bankside

London SE1 9TG

T: +44 (0)20 7401 5190

F: +44 (0)20 7401 5052

"Sheena Wagstaff" <Sheena.Wagstaff@tate.org.uk>

Debbie Landau

President

Madison Square Park Conservancy

One Madison Avenue, 6th Floor

New York, NY 10010

T: (212) 538-7150

F: (212) 538-3970

"Debbie Landau" dlandau@madisonsquarepark.org

Karen Van Lengen

Dean

School of Architecture

University of Virginia

PO Box 400122

Charlottesville, 22904

T: (434)-924-7019

"Van Lengen, Karen (kv3f)" kv3f@eservices.virginia.edu

Luis R. Cancel

Director of Cultural Affairs

San Francisco Arts Commission

25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 240

San Francisco, CA 94102

Tel: 415-252-2591

Luis.Cancel@sfgov.org