Bill Gilbert completed his undergraduate work in studio art at Swarthmore College and Pitzer College. He received his MFA from the University of Montana in 1978 and has served on the faculty in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico since 1988 where he holds the Lannan Chair as director of the Land Arts of the American West program. Gilbert is co-founder of the new Art & Ecology emphasis in studio art.

Gilbert has exhibited his place-based, mixed media installation and video works internationally since 1981. He has participated in collaborative projects resulting in exhibitions in US, Ecuador, the Czech Republic, and Canada. Gilbert received a Lila Wallace Arts International Grant in 1994 to work with the Quichua people of Ecuador and has curated numerous exhibitions and written essays regarding the work of indigenous artists from the US Pueblos, Juan Mata Ortiz, Mexico, and Pastaza, Ecuador.

In 2009, the University of Texas Press released Gilbert’s book with professor Chris Taylor entitled Land Arts of the American West. He currently serves on the steering committee for the LAND/ART New Mexico project and has authored the introduction for the culminating book to be published by Radius Books.