“Surrender to a logic more powerful than reason”
~J.G. Ballard
This week at the Museum of Contemporary Art I met world-famous artist Doug Aitken, commercially popular for his video art and now gaining recognition for his influence on a new project, Station
to Station, which will have artists travelling across the country together by train. The group will be filming their trip and making stops along the way to host performances, exhibitions and musical gatherings— reminding me of the Further bus (see: Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test)and the journey of the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s.
At the end of the film crew’s day scouting shooting locations at the MCA, Doug made sure to give me a real kiss on the cheek as we said good luck to each other and parted ways.
Check out some of his work below!
In line with my idea that we are all waves, helpless to the pushes and pulls of the ocean around us, I have always been fascinated by the representation of water. I pay special attention, in life and in art, to the way light comes through the tips of waves and illuminates them. Today I was taken away when I found this phenomenon captured divinely, gracefully in the art of Samantha Keely Smith.
Recalls an artwork I’ve always held onto,
Ivan Aivazovsky, The Ninth Wave, 1850.
The other day I had a talktaive cab driver—a blessing. Trying to find out what I’m doing with my life, he asserted that whatever I do, it doesn’t mean anything if I don’t make a difference in the preexisting order. To make a change, I can’t be told what to do, allow myself to forever be assigned jobs by others. No, I need to create my own career, my own position, one so innovative that it might not even exist yet.
I asked him if he liked his job. He said he has a degree in social work, and he splits his time between being a taxi driver and working as a therapist in addiction counseling. He drives to afford a continuing education that will allow him to pursue the latter, which he has a relentless passion for.
This strive to make a difference was rooted so deeply within him that I found he could not easily separate the two worlds—with his wise words he was just as much a therapist when he was driving me as I was frenzied, late to work, as he probably is with his patients. Restoring my faith in selflessness, and wishing I had just a few more city blocks to talk with him as I got out of the cab, I told him that we need more people like him in this world.
Like these sand flowers I ran into by chance, sometimes we just need a beautiful blossom to make us stop and think amidst all the chaos of our fast-paced lives.
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