Happy End?

The upper floor of the museum presents works by AES+F, a Russian art collective who have garnered acclaim across the world. Works merge history, mythology, and the multiple realities of our contemporary world with a prophetic tone, and question our conceptions of good and evil, and of innocence and sin. The series of video, sculptures and photographic works Last Riot (2005-2007) portrays rebellious youth in an analogy of hell where the virtual becomes real. It is the end of ideology, history and ultimately of humanity. In the video The Feast of Trimalchio (2009-2010) the temporary luxury hotel resort, or Global Paradise, becomes the scenes for role reversals and threatening catastrophes.

On the museum’s lower floor, nine Finnish and international artists explore the depths of the human psyche and the chasms between luxury and everyday life. Jani Leinonen’s tombstones provoke consumption hysteria. Harri Pälviranta brings us face-to-face with school shooters. Timo Wright depicts human mortality and arrogant greed. Duncan Butt Juvonen utters 7000 apologies from the wallpaper. Kim Simonsson’s sculptures play a game in which honesty competes with cunning. In her animation installations, Reetta Neittaanmäki explores the boundary between the public and private sphere. Reetta Hiltunen challenges the Happy Families role models. Cherry/Studio Killers presents Cherry, a virtual pop singer and restless muse, who claims we are all misled. Joksu + Mirror Project Team play with our sense of place. The Mirror immerses us in two places simultaneously. Here Cherry can also be caught making an appearance.

The Happy End? exhibition resumes outside the Tennis Palace. On the square in front of the museum, three gigantic glossy black statues by AES+F – Angels-Demons No 3 and 4 and First Rider – point the way to the genesis of a new world. An installation by Jani Leinonen in the Kommentti display space at platform-level at Kamppi metro station takes a stand on our consumer habits. The logos in the We Are Sorry light panel (box+) crystallise modern urban corporate ethics into one hot topical slogan. Joksu + Mirror Project Team’s spatial twinMirror can be experienced in the new Kaisa House, the main library of the University of Helsinki.

The solo exhibition AES+F has been realized as a collaboration between Helsinki Art Museum and the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. Co-curated by Olga Sviblova and Helsinki Art Museum. The main sponsor of the exhibition is HOK-Elanto.