A New Traveling Artwork by Doug Aitken May Surprise People Across Massachusetts in July

  • BOSTON, Massachusetts
  • /
  • April 08, 2019

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Rendering for 'New Horizon' by Doug Aitken.

Multimedia installation will travel to several sites across Massachusetts over 14 days in July 2019

The Trustees, the first preservation and conservation organization in the U.S., has announced American multimedia artist and filmmaker Doug Aitken as the next artist to create an original, large-scale installation for its Art & the Landscape contemporary public art series. Titled New Horizon, the installation will be Aitken’s first public artwork commission in the U.S. for a large statewide conservation nonprofit and one of the most ambitious projects mounted by The Trustees.

On view now through April 1, 2020, is Berlin-based contemporary artist Alicja Kwade's (b.1979, Poland) TunnelTeller. It is shown at one of The Trustees’ most iconic properties, the Crane Estate, comprised of 2,100 protected acres consisting of Castle Hill, a National Historic Landmark, in Ipswich, Mass.
Peter Vanderwarker Photography

New Horizon has been conceived and created specifically for the Trustees and will be presented at several natural, coastal, and cultural sites throughout Massachusetts in the summer of 2019. The artwork will premiere with a sunrise launch at The Trustees’ Long Point beach on Martha’s Vineyard on Friday, July 12 and make several multi-day and single day stops and surprise appearances throughout the state, ending on Sunday, July 28 at Field Farm in Williamstown. Events will include live musical performances, provocative discussions about conservation and the future of our world and environment, and dynamic nighttime illuminations. More details about the programming will be revealed in the coming months as they are confirmed.

The Trustees’ introduced its Art & the Landscape series in 2016 to create inspiring art experiences at some of the Massachusetts-based conservation nonprofit’s historic house museums, parks, gardens, and beaches. Aitken will be the fourth artist to be featured in the series which has, to date, included works by Alicja Kwade, Jeppe Hein, and Sam Durant and welcomed thousands of new and repeat visitors at some of The Trustees’ most iconic sites, including Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich and the Old Manse in Concord, both National Historic Landmarks, and World’s End in Hingham.

“When we began the Art & the Landscape project, we invited artists to create new work inspired by our places, but Doug Aitken has gone beyond that,” says Barbara Erickson, Trustees President & CEO. “He has created a project inspired by our mission and our organizational work, moving beyond one site specific installation to two weeks of installations. I look forward to seeing how his generative piece and the complementary programming transforms our places through not only beauty and spectacle, but also conversation, thought, and ideas.”

Now closed, an installation at World’s End by Jeppe Hein included a reflective labyrinth structure, made of mirrored posts of differing heights, overlooking Boston.

Aitken is known for working in every medium, from film and installations to architectural intervention, as a means to push and inspire the viewer to interpret the world around us with a new perspective. His works are often platforms for engagement that provoke innovative thought and dialogue.

“One of our intentions of the Art & the Landscape program is to increase access to the contemporary art experience among diverse audiences using The Trustees’ cultural and natural sites as the platform--or even, in Aikten’s case, as the medium itself,” adds Pedro Alonzo, Curator for the Art & the Landscape series. “Aitken is a master at engaging not only contemporary art enthusiasts but the broader general public, as well, in his incredibly innovative, creative work. This will be a unique, multi-sensory experience not to be missed.”

Doug Aitken is widely known for his innovative fine art installations. Utilizing a wide array of artistic approaches, Aitken's eye leads us into a world where time, space, and memory are fluid concepts. His work has been featured in exhibitions around the world, in such institutions as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, 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. Aitken earned the International Prize at the Venice Biennale for the installation “electric earth,” the 2012 Nam June Paik Art Center Prize, the 2013 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award: Visual Arts, and the 2017 Frontier Art Prize.

Recent solo exhibitions include survey exhibitions at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany (2015), The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2016), and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, USA (2017). Major installations include Underwater Pavilions, presented by Parley for the Oceans and MOCA, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, CA, USA (2016) and the site-specific artwork Mirage, installed at Desert X, Palm Springs, CA, USA (2017), Detroit, MI, USA (2018), and Gstaad, Switzerland (2019). 


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