Doug Aitken (*1968 in Redondo Beach, CA) is widely known for his innovative fine art installations. He utilises a wide array of media and artistic approaches, his eye leading us into a world where time, space, and memory are fluid concepts. Aitken’s work effortlessly slips into our media-saturated cultural unconscious, allowing the viewer to experience cinema in a unique way by deconstructing a connection between sound, moving images and the rhythms of our surroundings. Treating the world as his studio, he edits together frenetic and unique models of contemporary experience.
Aitken employs a number of post studio artistic mediums – photography, sculpture, architecture, sound installation, and multi channel video installation. In each of his artworks, Aitken chooses the medium or combination that amplifies and visually articulates the subject’s qualities. The scale of the work can vary from a simple photograph to a complex moving sculpture of infinitely reflective automated mirrors. Quasi-narrative films create intricate mazes of open-ended stories told across reinterpreted physical architecture.
Aitken has had numerous screenings, solo and group exhibitions around the world, and was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999. In the summer of 2015 he presented Station to Station: A 30 Day Happening at the Barbican, London, a living exhibition with over a hundred free performances and residencies taking place over the course of thirty days. Doug Aitken currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
