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Acclaimed artist Doug Aitken is hiring a Studio Director in California

2024-01-03T15:35:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Project Manager at Food Architects DPC, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Studio Director at Doug Aitken Workshop.

The role, based in Venice, CA, calls for an individual to “take on the day-to-day running” of Aitken’s dynamic and tight-knit studio. The ideal candidate will have experience in the art world and knowledge of contemporary art, as well as being a “responsible, intelligent, creative problem solver who is excited to grow with the studio.”

Related on Archinect: Saint Laurent taps Doug Aitken to help present its SS22 line in Venice. Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Doug Aitken Workshop allows us to profile the work of one of the most prominent multidisciplinary artists in the United States. Born in California in 1968, Aitken has established a reputation for immersive, experiential works of art that explore themes of...

Saint Laurent taps Doug Aitken to help present its SS22 line in Venice

2021-07-19T14:43:00-04:00

A temporary installation by Doug Aitken is gracing the runway in Venice thanks to a new commission from fashion giant Saint Laurent.

The artist’s latest work titled Green Lens is a glowing, 10-pronged kaleidoscopic pavilion made from mirrored aluminum panels that sits on a defunct 54-acre military installation hosted on an island called La Certosa.

Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

Aitken uses an admixture of locally-sourced plants, artificially-generated mist, and colorful lighting to create an immersive activated sculpture he says is inspired by the set designs from his favorite Andrei Tarkovsky films. The installation’s focus on ecology and litoral setting elevates a long-held sense of the natural world that the 53-year-old artist has made a focus of throughout his three-decade career.

Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

“It’s something that the viewer can be a part of, the landscape around it can be part of,” Aitken told ARTnews.

Seasonal presentations in the industry had been upended in ...

Doug Aitken's Detroit Mirage opens up in once-abandoned bank

2018-10-10T19:14:00-04:00

Doug Aitken's new art installation Mirage Detroit has opened in the once-abandoned State Savings Bank, a century-old Beaux-Arts building in downtown Detroit that has sat empty for decades.

Aitken's latest work brings back his much beloved project for Desert X, which saw a reflective suburban home plopped into the Coachella Valley desert. For the city of Detroit, the art world giant has taken this ranch-style home, given it a perfected mirrored surface, and placed it in the decorative interiors of the old bank.

Installation view of Doug Aitken, Mirage Detroit 2018, photography by Conner MacPhee, courtesy the artist and Library Street Collective.

Covered in hundreds of pieces of mirrors, the large sculpture reflects the Roman arched colonnades and bronze flourishes of its architectural surroundings. A light show choreographed by longtime Radiohead se...

Doug Aitken's 'Mirage' to be installed in downtown Detroit's State Savings Bank building

2018-09-13T14:51:00-04:00

The historic State Savings Bank in downtown Detroit will soon play host to the award-winning artist Doug Aitken's latest site-specific work. Opening to the public on October 10th, the former bank building will see a ranch-style suburban home erected inside its century-old walls.

The project titled 'Mirage Detroit' is a continuation of the California artist's ongoing investigation into what he calls 'liquid architecture,' described by the desire of wanting to make 'the Building' disappear.

Last year, for the inaugural Desert X event which saw various artworks scattered across the Coachella Valley, Mr. Aitken created a sculptural installation in the form of a typical ranch house, fully covered in mirrors inside and out. A riff on this elaborate structure will now be presented inside the archaic bank building.

Image by Doug Aitken Workshop.

Entirely reflective, the mirrored installation transforms the classic one-story house into a 'human-scale kaleidoscope'. Placed within the Beaux-ar...

Doug Aitken among artists in Palm Springs-adjacent art show, "Desert X"

2017-02-23T19:53:00-05:00

Amid the dust and clamor is the steel skeleton of Aitken’s “Mirage,” which takes the form of a 1960s-style suburban California ranch house. The seven-room structure, to be fully mirrored on the outside and inside, is perched on a hillside with city and desert views, which are key to the piece. The structure has gaping holes where doors and windows might be, and its interior walls are built on angles to reflect the sky and contrasting surrounding terrain...

What does the desert in Riverside County have to offer aside from a massive annual music festival, the sleek modernism of Palm Springs, and the ethereal vista of untrammeled nature? Well, starting on February 25th, it has the Desert Exhibition of Art, or Desert X for short.

Exhibitors in the self-guided, wide-ranging exhibit (you should plan on driving) include Doug Aitken, Sherin Guirguis, and Claudia Comte, who has created a 110-foot long stucco/wood sculpture that is part wall, part meditative exercise. Maps are available at the Ace Hotel; the exhibition will be up until April.

Remarkable projects come from remarkable people

2012-11-15T12:22:00-05:00

Remarkable projects come from remarkable people and Inhotim is the creation of Bernardo Paz, a mining magnate who has lavishly installed his contemporary art collection across several hillsides in Minas Gerais, an estate of some 5000 acres. Paz has commissioned many architects, to make pavilions specially designed for individual artists, and others that house several artists’ works, all cushioned within the lush vegetation of a botanic garden.

Multimedia artist Doug Aitken describes his exploration of how creative people tell their stories

2012-08-31T18:51:00-04:00

Opening on September 15, “The Source” is a six-screen installation housed in a circular pavilion built by architect David Adjaye on Liverpool’s Albert Dock, for which Aitken has filmed conversations with 15 creatives including musician Jack White, architect Jacques Herzog, contemporary artist Thomas Demand, actor Tilda Swinton, photographer William Eggleston and the artist Mike Kelley, who died soon after the interview.

Artist Doug Aitken's Venice Beach Home

2012-04-03T20:13:00-04:00

The house is the world’s first temple to “Acid Modernism,” the aesthetic the California-born Aitken conceived for himself and Gemma Ponsa, his companion of the last six years. “The goal was to create a warm, organic modernism that’s also perceptual and hallucinatory,” he said of the design. “We thought that would be a wonderful environment to live in.”

Doug Aitken Will Turn Hirshhorn Into 360-Degree Screen

2012-02-23T15:08:00-05:00

As if Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s giant inflatable balloon set to rise (sometime) from its roof, Up-style, weren’t a sufficiently kinetic addition to the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., the institution announced in a press release yesterday that artist Doug Aitken will turn the building’s circular facade into an enormous 360-degreen screen for nearly two months this spring.