Thanks so much to our last blogger Emily Colucci for her fantastic series of posts focusing on artists who remain committed to making their own work, with their own hands. Next up, we’re excited to welcome Bill Bilowit and Grela Orihuela 0f Wet Heat Project, a Miami-based independent film production company that focuses on contemporary art. Over the next two weeks, Bill and Grela will be sharing videos they’ve shot specifically for their guest stint on the Art21 Blog. The video series will focus on “comings and goings:” artists and art practitioners who have recently moved to or from Miami discussing the reasons behind these moves, and their impacts.
Wet Heat Project was launched in 2007 by Bill Bilowit and Grela Orihuela to produce independent and commissioned documentary films and events with a focus on contemporary art. The Project’s original subjects have included a wide diversity of artists and practices in their adopted home of Miami as the city shapes itself into a unique international art nexus. The Project is now expanding to the partners’ native New York, with forays to cities near and far as the topics entail. Orihuela is the Project’s executive producer; Bilowit is director, writer, and event developer.
Bill’s film production career began with 16mm camera work and assistant editing in New York, low-budget horror movie art direction and effects in the early 1980s, followed by more than 15 years of creating marketing videos for Sony and Canon shepherding in the global, historic transition from analog to digital. In 2002 he returned to fiction and non-fiction films as writer-director with producer Grela, establishing Tareco Pictures. Concurrently with Wet Heat Project, Bill collaborates and contracts with artists on digital film/video projects as a shooter, editor, and workflow consultant.
Grela graduated from NYU Film School in the 1980s and worked directly for two marketing and promotion legends: Bloomingdale’s fashion director Kal Ruttenstein and rock n ‘roll impresario Bill Graham. From iconic fashion and music events she moved to producing news at WABC-TV, executive producing at Telemundo Network, and developing independent Spanish-language programming. In the late 1980s she began 15 years of producing international corporate mega-conferences, concerts and expositions until 2002, when she established Tareco Pictures with partner Bill Bilowit. Concurrently with Wet Heat Project, Orihuela produces and curates original video art exhibitions and thematic multi-disciplinary exhibits.
We’re thrilled to have Bill and Grela on board!
