AES+F

Sargent’s Daughters is pleased to present Inverso Mundus: Chimeras, the debut New York exhibition of internationally acclaimed Russian artist collective AES+F.

In the wake of Putin’s re-election, the violence against dissidents such as Aleksei Navalny, and the recent amplified persecution of artists across Russia, AES+F’s critiques of the oligarchy, power, and military aggression are particularly pointed. Their public stance against the war in Ukraine has made them a target, and informed their decision to leave Moscow and relocate to Berlin in 2022.

Inverso Mundus: Chimeras, presents 10 never before seen paintings, correlated to images and themes from Inverso Mundus, their video installation and performance work that premiered at the 56th Biennale di Venezia in 2015. In the style of Old Masters paintings, these works present the groundbreaking and challenging work of AES+F in a new medium for a new audience.

AES+F achieved worldwide recognition and acclaim in the Russian Pavilion at the 52nd Biennale di Venezia in 2007 with their provocative, other-worldly Last Riot (2007), the first in a trio of large-scale, multichannel video installations of striking originality that have come to define both the AES+F aesthetic and the cutting edge of the medium’s capacities. The second of the series, The Feast of Trimalchio (2009), appeared in Venice in 2009, and the third, Allegoria Sacra (2011), debuted at the 4th Moscow Biennale in 2011. United as The Liminal Space Trilogy, this tour-de-force series was premiered in September 2012 at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, and the Moscow Manege, the central exhibition hall of the artists’ home city, and has since been shown on many occasions at various museums and festivals. In 2015, AES+F premiered Inverso Mundus at the 56th Biennale di Venezia. Inverso Mundus was later shown at the Kochi-Muziris Biennial and a number of other museums and festivals all over the world.

Globally recognized and extensively lauded as masters of their craft, AES+F have been showcased in a myriad of festivals, museums, exhibitions, and collections, including the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, and the Gwangju Biennale, among others. They were also featured in the Lille3000 Festival in 2009, and now have a permanent installation at the Gare Saint-Sauveur in Lille (France). AES+F has been featured in exhibitions as well as permanent collections at locations such as the Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Tate Britain (London, England), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), Taguchi Art collection (Tokyo, Japan), SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, GA), Gwangju Museum of Art (Gwangju, South Korea), Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris, France), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain), Today Art Museum (Beijing, China), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea), The State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow, Russia), National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia), Faena Art Center (Buenos Aires, Argentina) among other major international institutions. AES+F has also appeared in many popular publications, including Artforum, The New York Times, The Guardian, Wallpaper, Kunstforum International, Frieze, Flash Art, Le Monde, Art Press, Corriere della Sera, and many others. The group’s newest monograph was published by Rizzoli in 2023 and catalogs the last twenty-five years of their work.