Bill Daniel is a photographer, filmmaker, author, curator, zine maker and publisher whose work spans documentary and experimental forms. His practices are informed by his formative experience in the Austin, Texas punk scene of the early 1980s, and embody a DIY ethos of touring and self-produced exhibitions. In the late 1980s Daniel moved from Texas to San Francisco, found work as a bike messenger, and became immersed in the art and film scene in the Mission.
Daniel’s seminal 2005 film on hobo and rail worker culture, Who is Bozo Texino?, helped originate the contemporary practice of moniker writing–now a foundational element of punk and graffiti cultures. The film has screened worldwide in festivals and art centers, and been shown on tour in hundreds of diverse venues in the US; from the Walker Art Center, MoMA in New York, to The Mudlark in New Orleans and The Smell in Los Angeles.
Daniel is a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and has received awards from Creative Capital, the Wattis Foundation, and a 1999 residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts where he collaborated with artist Margaret Kilgallen. He has exhibited at Deitch Projects and MOCA LA. His work is in the collection of MoMA, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
