From 303 Gallery:

Doug Aitken: ‘sonic happening’
Featuring performances by White Rainbow, Lichens and Arp

Wednesday Oct 22, 2008 6-8pm
303 Gallery at 547 west 21st street

“the sonic happening (migration)”

In conjunction with Doug Aitken’s current exhibition, 303 Gallery is pleased to present a special viewing of Doug Aitken’s film based installation “migration”. For this event the artist has turned off the film’s soundtrack and invited the musicians Lichens, White Rainbow and Arp to create live improvisational scores set to the work.

Doug Aitken currently has concurrent installations at 303 Gallery’s two spaces. The performance, event, and ‘happening’ have been integral elements in his work. Aitken has organized ‘happenings’ in Los Angeles, New York, Basel, Manchester and Philadelphia.

In Lichens, wordless vocals are looped into curtains of drone, adding acoustic and electric guitars, percussion and other effects to create alternately thick and delicate works. Lichens has recorded and released two full-length LPs, “The Psychic Nature of Being” and “Omns”. In addition his work appears in the score of the film “migration”.

Portland-based White Rainbow, has released 7 full length albums since 2000. Creating morphing soundscapes that alternately reference minimalism, eastern prayer musics and trance ritual, White Rainbow weaves a unique web of sound meant to interact directly with its environment. He also provides the score to Aitken’s installation “to give it all away.”

Arp is the most recent project of Alexis Georgopoulos, a San Francisco-based artist, writer and musician brought up in France, Greece and the United States. As Arp, he released 2008’s “In Light”, an album recorded almost entirely live, and meant to serve as a bridge between the natural and electronic worlds.

“Migration” is included in the 55th Carnegie International exhibition “Life on Mars” where the piece is projected on the museum’s façade through January 2009. Aitken has also had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, ARC Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Serpentine Gallery, London, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan. Aitken’s newest book “99 cent Dreams” was published in 2008 by Aspen Art Museum following his solo exhibition there, and his artist’s book “Write In Jerry Brown President” will be published by the Museum of Modern Art, New York in October 2008.