An artist exploring every medium, from sculpture, film and installations to architectural interventions, Los Angeles-based Doug Aitken – whose works have been exhibited in hundreds of museums and galleries around the world, including at MoMA, the Hirshhorn Museum and at Sydney, Australia’s Museum of Contemporary Art – plumbs his own psychological depths only to discover what makes him love work and life.
What historical art figure would you like to have lunch with and why? I would like to bring back some of the artists who I counted as friends, but have since passed away. I have so much more to ask them, whether it would be John Baldessari, Kenneth Anger, Francois Perrin, Chris Burden, Steve Roden, Franz West, Lawrence Weiner, and many others no longer with us.
What words or phrases do you overuse? I had lunch with artist Franz West once and he told me afterwards that I say, “revolution,“ and “meteorite,“ again and again in our conversation. Then six months later, he shipped me a sculpture of a revolutionary meteorite that he made for me in memory of our lunch conversation.
Doug Aitken, Let it grow (Buffalo III), 2025; Install View: Regen Projects, Los Angeles, USA, 2025 ; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford.
How do you know when a work is finished? It’s a rare but interesting sensation after spending a large amount of time and energy on an artwork. When it’s finally completed you might look at it and it will seem utterly foreign to you. And you have absolutely no idea where it came from or how it arrived in front of you.
When and where were you happiest? When I’m in the present.
Doug Aitken, Someplace vast and unimaginable: Deep time in flat space, 2024; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Ari Adams.
What is your most treasured possession? The small wood table that I had dinner on with my mother and father every night; the table is scarred, aged and stained. It looks absolutely simple and ordinary.
Where is your ideal escape destination? It seems to usually start with a dirt road, but I’ll take the journey instead of the destination.
What’s the worst survival job you’ve ever had? Every job is interesting, but working on a kiwi farm in a summer heatwave in the Central Valley, pruning mutant kiwis, where the kiwis often grow together in clusters, was strange. Evidently, the packing houses for the fruit wouldn’t accept these mutant kiwis because they thought they looked like male testicles, so my job was to prune them off of the vines so they wouldn’t re-grow.
Doug Aitken, CONTACT (for Dagny), 2025; Install View: Regen Projects, Los Angeles, USA, 2025; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford.
What makes you smile? Beautiful absurdity.
What makes you cry? Airplane flights seem to open up my tear ducks, I can cry at absolutely anything on a plane.
Who inspires you? Everyone and everything… it’s limitless, isn’t it.
Doug Aitken, The Mountain, 2025; Install View: Regen Projects, Los Angeles, USA, 2025; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Evan Bedford.
What’s your best quality? Probably my biggest flaw.
What’s your biggest flaw? That’s probably my best quality.
Doug Aitken, Lightscape, 2024; Install View: Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles, USA, 2025; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Brica Wilcox.
What is your current state of mind? Restless and curious.
What do you consider your greatest achievement? I honestly don’t think about my past too much.
Doug Aitken, Spirit Animal (P-22), 2024; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Ari Adams.
Cover image: Doug Aitken Portrait, Doug Aitken, Spirit Animal (P-22), 2024; © Doug Aitken, Courtesy of the artist; 303 Gallery, New York; Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zürich; Victoria Miro, London; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles.
Lightscape is on view at the Marciano Art Foundation through May, 17, 2025. Visit the artist at his website and on IG.
