ART CITIES:Zurich-Doug Aitken

The new exhibition of the American artist Doug Atiken at the Galerie Eva Presenhuber, explores the modern landscape and posits possibilities for new uncharted frontiers. Spanning a variety of media encompassing photography, sculpture, happenings and performances, sound, and single and multi-channel video installations.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Eva Presenhuber Galerie Archive

This solo exhibition marks the premiere of Aitken’s amazing new soft sculptures. These works are made of photographic images on fabric that create sculptural forms, furniture and social spaces. Slices of the contemporary landscape are re-formed to create a tactile world of concepts and energy. Aitken’s exhibition at Galerie Eva Presenhuber crystalizes elements of the modern world, while re-creating their meaning and provoking unique encounters. This exhibition features an installation of new sculptural objects that create an immersive environment where place and time dissolve, and where the individual exists adrift in an electrically charged space. Viewers are confronted with a series of signs and symbols that at first glance appear familiar but upon closer inspection reveal their foreign nature. Two internally illuminated light box sculptures hover on the gallery walls. In the shapes of airplanes, the images inside charge the works with a sense of transition, representing the crystallization of an idea captured from the frenetic modern landscape. Both works stamp a portion of the visible world with this shape. While one gazes into a mine dug deep into the earth, the other lifts off and wings up into an expansive blue sky and above the clouds. A soft light emits from Twilight a cast public pay phone bathed in a luminous glow. Appearing as a relic of a bygone era and removed from its everyday function the work becomes a vessel emitting interactive light that brightens or dims depending on the viewer’s proximity to its surface.

Info: Eva Presenhuber Galerie, Löwenbräu Areal, Limmatstr. 270, 8005 Zürich, Duration: 16/5-18/6/15, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri: 10:00-18:00, Sat: 11:00-17:00, www.presenhuber.com