Frontier-Linear

2009 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Doug Aitken

year born: 1968
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: Redondo Beach, California

The version of Frontier acquired by the Kadist Collection consists of a single-channel video, adapted from the monumental installation and performance that Aitken presented in Rome, by the Tiber River, in 2009. In this film, Aiken’s allusion to “the frontier” and iconic imagery like the cowboy suggest that the American West Coast as a cultural construction. These notions are reinforced by two key elements in the film: its protagonist, the iconic West Coast artist Ed Ruscha, and its reference to the cinematic and the experience of the movie theater. The film is structured as a journey in time, from day to night. The completed film was shot in different places around the globe, including Los Angeles, Rome, South Africa, and Israel, which suggests the blurring boundaries of the unknown and emphasizes both fictive and real landscapes.


Doug Aitken’s work started to draw international attention when his installation Electric Earth earned the International Prize at the 1999 Venice Biennale, which was organized by renowned Swiss curator Harald Szeemann. Interested in breaking conventional narratives, Aitken emphasizes circularity and non-linearity in his monumental site-specific installations. This monumentality is usually expressed in Aitken’s tendency to combine apparently disconnected fragments in order to create epic films. Although this aspect of his work differs from the all-encompassing wholes sought by modernism, Aitken’s films play with the imaginary and surreal in a way that flirts with the notion of utopia. The artist uses pop culture and, especially, the film industry as sources for his compelling and immersive environments. Aesthetic elements such as coloration, light and space and a careful editing process give his films a contemplative mood.


Colors:



Absentia
© » KADIST

Tony Oursler

2012

Continuing Oursler’s broader exploration of the moving image, Absentia is one of three micro-scale installations that incorporate small objects and tiny video projections within a miniature active proscenium...

Hydroforce
© » KADIST

Liz Cohen

2011

From among a cloud of fake smoke we see a heavily pregnant Cohen wearing a bikini and golden stilettos with lace-up straps wrapped around her legs, grasping onto the frame of a modified car as its loud hydraulic system clumsily moves it up and down...

!Women Art Revolution
© » KADIST

Lynn Hershman Leeson

2010

Hershman Leeson’s documentary, Women Art Revolution (W...

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Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1)
© » KADIST

Cerith Wyn Evans

2008

Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1) by Cerith Wyn Evans takes as its starting point Felix Gonzales-Torres’s seminal work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) , in which two clocks were synchronized and left to run without interference, the implication being that one would stop before the other...

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© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...

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Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1)
© » KADIST

Cerith Wyn Evans

2008

Untitled (Perfect Lovers + 1) by Cerith Wyn Evans takes as its starting point Felix Gonzales-Torres’s seminal work Untitled (Perfect Lovers) , in which two clocks were synchronized and left to run without interference, the implication being that one would stop before the other...

Swimming in Rivers of Glue
© » KADIST

Julieta Aranda

2016

The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...

Hako
© » KADIST

Hiraki Sawa

2006

Hako (2006) depicts a mysterious and dystopic landscape where the world becomes flat: distance between different spaces, depth of field and three-dimensional perceptions are canceled...

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Leading Collector of Middle Eastern Art to Sell Dozens of Works at Sotheby’s - via ARTnews
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Abdulrahman Al Zayani is selling more than 80 works by Middle East artists....

The Power of a Poem
© » ARTS EQUATOR

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Judith Schaechter’s Stained Glass Work Part of Major Survey
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The stunning stained glass work of Judith Schaechter is the center of an upcoming exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, the first major survey of the artist's 37-year career...

Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs
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Tarek Atoui, Mariana Castillo Deball, Jimmie Durham, Sulaiman Esa, Edgar Fernandez, Meschac Gaba, Simryn Gill, Ion Grigorescu, Taloi Havini, Ho Siu-Kee, James T...

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Critical Mass by Kerry Tribe
© » KADIST

Scoring Hollis Frampton’s experimental film Critical Mass (1971), Los Angeles based artist Kerry Tribe stages a live performance of an arguing couple, retaining the quick, repetitive cuts and staccato rhythm produced through careful editing of the film...

Press Release: Art21 to Release Two New Films in October: “Paul Pfeiffer: Interrupting the Broadcast” and “Wong Ping: The Freedom of Animation”
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Exploring The End Of The Golden Era Of Singapore Cinema
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A Border Musical
© » KADIST

Chto Delat

In this film is the story of two neighboring yet philosophically opposing nations: Russia and Norway...