Purple Television

Doug Aitken TV Takeover

Purple is happy to present it’s curator for this months TV Takeover, Los Angeles multimedia artist DOUG AITKEN. No stranger to curation, last year Aitken famously led a train filled with an impressive array of artists, musicians, writers, photographers, designers and other creatives westward across America in September 2013 — staging “happenings” in public locations along the way as part of his Station to Station project. It was a “living manifesto on creativity today, documenting the people and stories that define our creative landscape.” International artists such as URS FISCHER, CARSTON HÖLLER,OLAFUR ELIASSON, and experimental filmmaker KENNETH ANGER contributed mobile art yurts or films; musicians likeCAT POWER, BECK, GIORGIO MORODER, PATTI SMITH, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, Twin Shadow, and THURSTON MOORE provided live music, a food “happening” by RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA, and marching bands Kansas City, are amouhg the few contributors.

His curation in music is also reflected in his other artworks. In late 2012 he collaborated with legendary minimalist composer TERRY RILEY to perform alongside his Altered Earth installation in Arles.

In each of his artworks, Aitken chooses the medium or combination that amplifies and visually articulates the subject’s qualities. For Song 1 (2012) commissioned for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC,Sleepwalkers (2007) installation at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Migration (2008) installation at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Aitken re-imagines the museum’s façade as a screen onto which a film is projected for a greater audience.

His latest exhibition Still Life is currently on show at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. The show features an installation of new sculptural objects within a labyrinthine space designed to create an experience of unexpected encounters and a sense of mystery and discovery for the viewer to navigate.

The TV Takeover coincides with our latest Purple Fashion magazine document of his ongoing project Acid Modernism.Acid Modernism is the title of the house he built with his partner GEMMA PONSA in Venice, California. A geometric nest, an architectural artwork “physically connected to the vibrations of the surrounding nature.” Read more on this work and see our exclusive photos in Purple Fashion magazine #22 available to buy here.

For his TV Takeover look forward to an array of the obscure – from art and music to Japanese TV commercials and drug fuelled interviews. Day 1 is Married to the Eiffel Tower (2008) a fascinating observation documentary about three women with the disorder called Objectum Sexuality where they are sexually attracted and emotionally attached to inanimate objects.

[October 11 2014] : Television

Doug Aitken TV Takeover/ Rive Gauche Perfume by Yves Saint Laurent commercial (1979)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy – King Tutta
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Silence (1968)
Doug Aitken TV Takoever / Robert Morris Bodyspacemotionthings at Tate Modern
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Doped Youth (2005)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Catalog (1961)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Butthole Surfers / 80s Interview in Bed (Part I)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / 7Up “Bubbles” commercial (1974)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Married to the Eiffel Tower (2008)
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Khun Narin’s Electric Phin Band
Doug Aitken TV Takeover – Allan Kaprow / How to Make a Happening
Doug Aitken TV Takeover / Charles Bronson Mandom Perfume Commercial (1976)

Doug Aitken TV Takeover/ Rive Gauche Perfume by Yves Saint Laurent commercial (1979) by YSL

For Day 4 of his TV Takeover artist Doug Aitken selects the Japanese commercial for toiletry brand Mandom starring Charles Bronson, of “Death Wish” franchise fame.

Mandom recruited Bronson to promote the fragrance line after his film, “Once Upon A Time In The West” became a hit in Japan. To the east he was considered as the quintessential ‘Western Man.’ The actor was paid $100,000 to star in the commercial which took Japanese director, Nobuhiko Ohbayashi, four days to shoot. Apparently, the sum exceeded the fees Bronson made for his memorable roles in both “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape” together. In the commercial we see Bronson bathing in perfume/aftershave while the song “All the... Read More

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