This Reflective House in the California Desert is Mind-Bending. By John Gendall
Perched on the edge of the Chino Cone, overlooking Palm Springs, lot lines have been marked out for what will become a new subdivision, Desert Palisades. At this point, the boulder-strewn slope is sparse: a guardhouse, designed by California architecture firm Studio AR&D, a posthumously realized home by midcentury master Al Beadle, and, most recently, an impossible-to-miss suburban ranch house clad entirely in mirror, better known as artist Doug Aitken's latest installation.
On the heels of "Doug Aitken: Electric Earth," a major retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, this newest project, called Mirage, has been much anticipated, so AD sat down with the artist in the shade cast by the structure to discuss how he arrived at this particular form. Buildings have long been a part of his portfolio. Back in 2007, he covered MoMA's façades with projections, and, in 2012, he turned his focus on the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C., transforming its iconic circular façade into a sound and video installation. Mirage, a sculpture in the form of a house, is very much a part of that conceptual arc.
Image: Lance Gerber, courtesy of Desert X
