ART-PRESENTATION: Doug Aitken-Underwater Pavilions

Doug Aitken’s work explores every medium, from sculpture, film, and installation to architectural intervention. Doug Aitken exploded onto the international art scene with his multi-screen work “Electric earth”, which captivated audiences at the Venice and Whitney biennales in 1999. Portraying some of contemporary art’s most beautiful imagery, Aitken’s installations encircle the viewer, creating a suspended, hyperreal portrait of contemporary life.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: MOCA Archive

“Underwater Pavilions” is Doug Aitken’s most recent large-scale installation and will be installed this fall off the coast of Southern California on Catalina Island near Los Angeles. The work consists of three temporary underwater sculptures, floating beneath the ocean’s surface that swimmers, snorkelers, and scuba divers can swim through and experience. Geometric in design, the sculptures create underwater spaces synthesizing art and science as they are constructed with carefully researched materials and will be moored to the ocean floor. Part of each sculpture is mirrored to reflect the underwater seascape and create a kaleidoscopic observatory for the viewer, while other surfaces are rough and rock-like. The environments created in and by the sculptures will constantly change with the currents and the time of day, focusing the attention of the viewer on the rhythm of the ocean and its life cycles.   The work operates as an observatory for ocean life, creating a variety of converging perceptual encounters. The sculptures will continuously change due to the natural and manmade conditions of the ocean, creating a living presence and unique relationship with the viewer. Both aesthetic and scientific, “Underwater Pavilions” puts the local marine environment and the global challenges around ocean conservation in dialogue with the history of art, inviting the viewer to write a contemporary narrative of the ocean and to participate in its protection.

Info: Casino Point Dive Park, St Catherine Way, Avalon, Catalina Island,  California, U.S.A.