Doug Aitken
image via AFP/Getty Images
b.1968
Lives/Works in:
Los Angeles, California
Education:
Marymount College, Palos Verdes, CA [1987–1991]
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
Aitken’s style of art lingers in a realm between popular culture and media art. He has taken the liberty of incorporating video into much of his work, revealing a wealth of intensities. “There is no linear narrative in Aitken’s videos; the story line is disjointed both in terms of the films’ structure and sequence of images, as well as in their prism-like projection.” Grosenick, pg.20
Atkins is not only a videographer, but a photographer as well. He creates photographs influenced by epic road movies, as well as photographs manipulated through the use of a computer. Atkins’ photographs “kaleidoscopically fragment their motifs, thus attempting to translate the principle of his video projections into a single flat surface.” Grosenick, pg. 20
“He belongs to a generation of artist that enriched the presentation of the medium of video. Aitken’s work questions nature and civilization as well as people and their relationship to time and space. Obsessed with the idea of present time, Aitken refers to his films and installations as being pure communication. In the process, he utilizes the vocabulary of Hollywood and advertising films. Alongside his freelance activities as artist and photographer, Doug Aitken is also known for his video clips, completed for artists such as Iggy Pop and Fatboy Slim.” –Media Art Net
Electric Earth image via Media Art Net
Aitken is currently participating in the Life on Mars exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Migration, image via Carnegie Museum of Art
Grosenick, Uta. Art Now Vol.2. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2005.***********
Info suggestions: info@artobserved.com
