Doug Aitken: New Ocean [Hardcover]

Douglas Aitken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

Doug Aitken is a young Californian video and installation artist who has risen to international prominence with works such as his multi-screen video environment "electric earth". Aitken's subjects explore the deserted spaces of Bollywood film sets in India; Jonestown, Guyana, the site of the notorious mass suicide of religious cultists; and a remote diamond-mining region of Namibia, closed to outsiders since 1908. His environments are vivid, elusive and dreamlike. This monograph explores the artist and his work. It features a discussion of Aitken's working methods by Amanda Sharp; an examination of Aitken's art within the context of contemporary philosophy and the work of other artists who have explored expanded notions of time and space; a study by Jorg Heiser of Aitken's "i am in you", a five-screen work centring on the imaginative experiences of a young girl; "Artist's Choice", for which the artist has selected a short story, "Funes the Memorious", by Jorge Luis Borges, whose description of altered realities through the distortions of mirrors and memory echoes the artist's own interests; and "Artist's Writings" - Doug Aitken's writings include his retelling of an unusual story he once heard from strangers he met in the desert and which served as the basis for a subsequent work.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Daniel Birnbaum (Survey) is a contributing editor of Artforum and the author of several books on art and philosophy, including The Hospitality of Presence: Problems of Otherness in Husserl's Phenomenology (1998) and, with the artist Carsten Holler, Production (2000). From 1998 to 2000 he was the director of IASPIS, an artists' residency programme based in Stockholm. Since January 2001 he has been the Director of Portikus and the Stadelschule Art Academy, both in Frankfurt. Amanda Sharp (Interview) is the publisher and co-founder of frieze, the contemporary art and culture magazine based in London and New York. Jorg Heiser (Focus) has been an associate editor of frieze magazine since 1998. He is based in Berlin, where he is currently studying at Humboldt University. As a writer on art and contemporary culture he has contributed to German journals and newspapers including Texte zur Kunst, Suddeutsche Zeitung and Zuricher Tagesanzeiger. For his Artist's Choice Aitken has selected an extract from the short story, 'Funes the Memorious' by Jorge Luis Borges, from his famous collection Ficciones (Fictions, 1944). Borges (1899-1986), a short-story writer, essayist and poet, was one of Argentina's most acclaimed writers. Doug Aitken is internationally acclaimed for his video works presented in innovative architectural environments. As well as the 1999 Venice Biennale and the 2000 Whitney Biennial, Aitken has been included in key recent group shows such as 'Unfinished History', Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1998); 'Hypermental: Rampant Reality 1950-2000 from Salvador Dali to Jeff Koons', Kunsthaus, Zurich (2000) and the Biennale of Sydney (2000). Aitken was born in Redondo Beach, California, in 1968. He lives and works in Venice Beach, California. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig (February 2003)
• Language: English, German
• ISBN-10: 3883756660
• ISBN-13: 978-3883756660
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,533,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)