Bill Burns is an artist and the artistic director of the Dogs and Boats and Airplanes Children’s Choir in Toronto. His works are included in collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art Special Library Collection, New York; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; Tate Britain – Artists’ Books Collection; The Getty Center, Los Angeles; the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; and the Cabinet des estampes, Geneva.
He has published numerous books and essays including When Pain Strikes, a scholarly anthology (Burns, Busby and Sawchuk, editors and contributors, University of Minnesota Press, 1999: Minneapolis), Bird Radio (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 2007: Cologne and Berlin), The Guide to the Flora and Fauna Information Service:0.800.0FAUNA0FLORA (Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2008: London, England) and Two Boiler Suits and a Playlist (YYZ BOOKS, 2010: Toronto). A boxed edition of three of his books about plants and animals and war was published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig (2011: Cologne). Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us, a memoir about Bill’s life as an artist, is published by Black Dog Publishing and YYZ BOOKS (2015: London and Toronto).
Bill Burns was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and has an MA from Goldsmiths’ College in London, England.
- Yaniya Lee, “Directions to the Land of Milk and Honey: An Interview with Bill Burns,” C Magazine #124, Winter 2015.
- David Balzer, “Miami by Air: An Interview with Bill Burns,” Canadian Art, December 4, 2013.
- Sarah Milroy, “Bill Burns prays to the gods of the art world,” The Globe and Mail, August 31, 2012.
- Gentiane Bélanger, “Of Fauna and Manufactured Derivatives: Bill Burns and the Lucrative Didactics of Environmental Stewardship,” C Magazine #107, Autumn 2010.
- Jennifer Gabrys, “Bill Burns, The Flora and Fauna Information Service at ICA, London,” Afterall, August 9, 2008.