'Everything was going well until we started to receive messages from local establishments inquiring about a mysterious red-orange dirt that was being tracked through their premises. Someone sent me photos and I could see this earth had been borne outside my show by foot, creating trails down the sidewalk, clearly leaving the gallery and going up and down Cork Street, in and out of jewellery shops and the many other galleries and exclusive businesses in Mayfair. I have to confess, I smiled when I heard this, and I thought how amazing it was that our artwork and its raw materials were starting to migrate, to leave the gallery and make their way through the neighbourhood.'
'This first show with Victoria was a seminal experience for me, but not only because of the exhibition itself, it went so far beyond that. What has mattered most has been getting to know Victoria, Glenn and their team over the years, and sensing their love of risk-taking and slyly subverting the system. Within them, I felt like I’d really found a new family of friends and collaborators, and isn’t that so much of what art is about?'
Image: Doug Aitken, Into the Sun, 1999
Video installation with three channels of video (colour, stereo sound), four projections, canvas, and earth
In Doug Aitken: Into the Sun, Victoria Miro, Cork Street, London, UK, 7 October–12 November 1999
