Doug aitken biography
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In 2009, his Sonic Pavilion opened to the public in the hills of Brazil at the new cultural foundation INHOTIM.
His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Vienna Secession, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In 2016 he received the Americans for the Arts National Arts Award: Outstanding Contributions to the Arts. He also received the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize and the 2013 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award: Visual Arts. His work has been featured in exhibitions around the world at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Vienna Secession, the Serpentine Gallery in London, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
The survey exhibition subsequently traveled to The Modern, Fort Worth in May 2017. He participated in the both the 1997 and 2000 Whitney Biennials, and earned the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999 for the installation “electric earth”. It has also been installed in Detroit, MI (2018) and in Gstaad, Switzerland (2019-2021). His artwork has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, the Vienna Secession, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Centre Georges Pompidou.
In the process, he utilizes the vocabulary of Hollywood and advertising films. Obsessed with the idea of present time, Aitken refers to his films and installations as being pure communication.
Doug Aitken is an American artist and filmmaker. A feature film and a book about the project were released in 2015.
Aitken earned the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999 for his installation, electric earth.
In September 2016, a major survey of Aitken’s work opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. Defying definitions of genre, he explores every medium, from film and installations to architectural interventions.
Aitken presented his large-scale film and architecture installation, “Frontier”, on Rome’s Isola Tiberina in 2009 and in Basel in 2010. Also in 2012, “SONG 1” wrapped the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC in 360-degree panoramic video projections, transforming the concrete exterior into an audiovisual spectacle.
Mirage, a site-specific sculpture that takes the form of a home completely covered in mirrors and set in the heart of the Californian desert was installed in 2017.
Aitken's awards include the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, the 2013 Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award and the 2019 ArtCenter College of Design Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021-22, The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia featured a retrospective of Aitken’s work.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:
2024 "Lightscape", Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
"Doug Aitken: Naked City", Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey
2023 "Doug Aitken: Return to the Real", Schauwerk Sindelfingen, Germany
2022 "Doug Aitken: Flags And Debris, Choreography In The Desolate City", The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
2021 "Doug Aitken: New Era", Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia
2020 “Doug Aitken: I Only Have Eyes for You”, Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland
“Doug Aitken: migration (empire)”, online exhibition series, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
2019 New Horizon: Art and the Landscape, The Trustees of Reservations’ Public Art Initiative, Various Locations
Doug Aitken, Mirage Gstaad, Elevation 1049: Frequencies, Gstaad, Switzerland
2018 Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen, Denmark
2017 "Doug Aitken: Electric Earth", Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX
"Mirage", Desert X, Palm Springs, CA
2016 "Doug Aitken, Underwater Pavilions", Parley for the Oceans and MoCA, Los Angeles, Pacific Ocean near Catalina Island, CA
"Doug Aitken: Electric Earth", The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
2015 Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
2013 "Station to Station", multiple locations across the U.S., New York To San Francisco
“electric earth”, Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin-si Gyeonggi-do, Korea
“MIRROR”, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
2012 "SONG 1", Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
2011 “Black Mirror”, DESTE Foundation Project Space, Salughterhouse and open-air barge, Hydra Island, Greece
2010 "Doug Aitken: migration (empire)", Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ
2009 “Frontier", Museum of Contemporary Art Roma / Enel Contemporanea, Tiber Island, Rome, Italy
2007 “sleepwalkers”, The Museum of Modern Art New York and Creative Time, New York, NY
2005 “ULTRAWORLD", Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
2004 "Hard Light", MoMA PS1, New York, NY
2003 Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
2001 "new ocean", Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; traveled to: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan (2002);
Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2002); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo per l’Arte, Turin, Italy (2003)
2000 "glass horizon", Vienna Secession, Vienna, Austria
1999 “Concentrations 33: Doug Aitken, Diamond Sea”, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
“dAPERTutto”, 48th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
1997 "1997 Whitney Biennial", Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
PRIZES:
2019 Lifetime Achievement Award, ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA
2017 Frontier Art Prize, World Frontiers Forum
2016 Americans for the Arts National Arts Award: Outstanding Contributions to the Arts
2013 Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award: Visual Arts
2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize
2009 Aurora Award, Aurora Picture Show, Houston, TX
2007 German Film Critics Association Award, KunstFilmBiennale, Cologne, Germany
2000 Aldrich Award, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
1999 International Prize - Golden Lion, Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
SELECTED PUBLIC AND MUSEUM COLLECTIONS:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
GAM - The Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Arts, Turin, Italy
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Modern Art, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
LINKS
Doug Aitken Workshop
Doug Aitken Workshop Vimeo
Lightscape
Altered Earth | Arles, city of moving images
Black Mirror
Station to Station
Station to Station Feature Film
Download CV
Doug Aitken
b 1968 in Redondo Beach, California (USA); 1986–1987 studied at Marymount College, Palos Verdes, CA; 1987–1991 studied at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA.
Aitken lives and works in Los Angeles (USA). Aitken belongs to a generation of artist that enriched the presentation of the medium of video. Utilizing a wide array of artistic approaches, he explores every medium, from film and installations to sculpture and architectural interventions. Aitken received the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, and the 2013 Smithsonian Magazine American Ingenuity Award: Visual Arts.
Aitken’s “Sleepwalkers” exhibition at MoMA in 2007 transformed an entire block of Manhattan as he covered the museum’s exterior walls with projections.