All Aboard Station To Station

Do flash mob proposals, photobombing, and hordes of fans pressed together at summer festivals leave you wondering whether anything is avant-garde anymore? Multimedia artist Doug Aitken may have just the tour for you this fall, featuring Beck, Cat Power, The Handsome Family and more.

Aitken’s Station To Station, a “creative collision of contemporary art, experimental music and film,” will traverse the States via train beginning Sept. 6 in Brooklyn, N.Y. and wrapping Sept. 28 in Oakland, Calif.

Photo: StationToStation.com

The lineup for the outing – which includes nine unique “happenings” at stops along the way in Pittsburgh; Chicago; St. Paul, Minn.; Lamy, N.M.; Winslow, Ariz.; Barstow, Calif.; and Los Angeles – will vary.

Beck, Boredoms, Cat Power, Cold Cave, Congos, Dan Deacon, Eleanor Friedberger, Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Handsome Family, Lia Ices, Kansas City Marching Cobras, Lucky Dragons, Connan Mockasin, Giorgio Moroder, Nite Jewel, No Age, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Savages, Sun Araw, THEESatisfaction, and Twin Shadow, will take the stage.

Site-specific works will be featured by contemporary artists including Aitken, Allora & Calzadilla, Taylor-Ruth Baldwin, Yto Barrada, Olaf Breuning, Kate Casanova, Peter Coffin, Bruce Conner, Thomas Demand, Cheryl Donnegan, Sam Durant, Olafur Eliasson, Sam Falls, Fischli & Weiss, Meschac Gaba, Theaster Gates, Fritz Haeg, Christian Jankowski, Jim Jarmusch, Aaron Koblin, Catherine Opie, Jorge Pardo, Philippe Parreno, Raymond Pettibon, Nicolas Provost, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Jack Pierson, Kelly Sears, Stephen Shore, Josh Smith, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Ryan Trecartin, and James Turrell.

Photo: AP Photo / Joe Giblin
Newport Folk Festival, Fort Adams State Park, Newport, R.I.

Every happening will kick off with an African procession organized by Meschac Gaba and feature nomadic yurt sculptures by Kenneth Anger, Urs Fisher, Liz Glynn, Carsten Höller, and Ernesto Neto, a flag created by Lawrence Weiner flag and a unique Kathryn Andrew poster.

Even food on the trek gets the artistic touch. Alice Waters will curate the culinary experience along with chef and forager Leif Hedendal to create unique offerings at each stop to include Slow Food farmers’ markets and Dinner Discussions.

Station To Station scored some help from Levi’s® brand, and the company will also participate in the tour by creating and curating a gallery of yurts where local artists can design and craft new products in real time.

Tickets for the tour are $25 and are on sale now. All funds from the sale of tickets will support non-traditional programming at Station to Station’s partner institutions: MoMA PS1, Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Walker Art Center, SITE Santa Fe, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Sundance Institute, and Arcosanti Institute.

For more information, visit StationToStation.com.