Life and Career
Wilson was born in Waco, Texas, the son of Loree Velma (née Hamilton) and D.M. Wilson, a lawyer. He studied business administration at the University of Texas from 1959 to 1962. He moved to Brooklyn in 1963, receiving a BFA in architecture from the Pratt Institute in 1965. He also attended lectures by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (widow of László Moholy-Nagy), studied painting with George J. McNeil and architecture with Paolo Soleri in Arizona.
In 1968, Wilson founded an experimental performance company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds (named for a teacher who helped him overcome a speech impediment (a severe stutter) while a teenager). With this company, he created his first major works, beginning with 1969's The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud. He began to work in opera in the early 1970s, creating Einstein on the Beach with Philip Glass, which brought the two artists worldwide fame.
In 1983-1984, Wilson planned a performance for the 1984 Summer Olympics, the CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down; the complete work was to have been 12 hours long, in 6 parts. The production was only partially completed — the full event was cancelled by the Olympic Arts Festival, due to insufficient funds. In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize jury unanimously selected the CIVIL warS for the drama prize, but the supervisory board rejected the choice and gave no drama award that year.
Wilson is known for pushing the boundaries of theatre. His works are noted for their austere style, very slow movement, and often extreme scale in space or in time. The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin was a 12-hour performance, while KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace was staged on a mountaintop in Iran and lasted seven days.
In addition to his work for the stage, Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, and furniture designs. He won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale for a sculptural installation.
In 1996, Wilson was the recipient of The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.
In 2004, Ali Hossaini offered Wilson a residency at the television channel LAB HD. Since then Wilson, with producer Esther Gordon (for among others Brad Pitt, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Robert Downey, Jr., Winona Ryder, Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Deeta von Teese, and Peter Sarsgaard) and later with Matthew Shattuck, has produced dozens of high-definition videos known as the Voom Portraits. Collaborators on this well-received project included the composer Michael Galasso, the late artist and designer Eugene Tsai, fashion designer Kevin Santos, and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. In addition to celebrity subjects, sitters have included royalty, animals, Nobel Prize winners and hobos.
Louis Aragon praised Wilson as: "What we, from whom Surrealism was born, dreamed would come after us and go beyond us".
Wilson is the subject of a 2006 documentary by Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Absolute Wilson.
He is currently working on a new stage musical with composer (and long-time collaborator) Tom Waits and playwright Martin McDonagh.
Robert Wilson is openly gay.
In 2002, Wilson was invited to serve as the first Mentor in Theatre in the inaugural cycle of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange. Out of a very gifted field of candidates, Wilson chose young Argentinean director Federico León as his protégé. Other theatre mentors for the initiative include Sir Peter Hall (2004), Julie Taymor (2006), Kate Valk (2008), Peter Sellars (2010) and Patrice Chéreau (2012).
Read more about this topic: Robert Wilson (director)
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