AES+F
Turandot 2070
About the Item
The art group AES+F (Tatiana Arzamasova, Lev Evzovich, Evgeny Svyatsky, Vladimir Fridkes) presents a reinterpretation of the old story of Princess Turandot, with the action transferred to 2070 and set in Beijing.
The images of the Princess Turandot fairy tale acquire new meaning due to AES+F’s unique creative method, by which subjects from classical art are retold in an ultramodern socio-cultural context. As true visionaries, AES+F not only reveal the global situation of today’s world, but also predict what we can expect tomorrow.
This ‘tomorrow’ sees Princess Turandot heading a revitalised and multi-ethnic Chinese empire that has grown to gigantic proportions. In uncompromising fashion she has replaced the social system with a techno-matriarchy and enjoys universal adoration bordering on idolatry.
In the surreal phantasmagoria of AES+F our time has become the past, and we can only guess what led Princess Turandot to such radical actions: the MeToo movement, women’s struggle against harassment or trauma that stem from their family history.
Age restriction: under 18
Music: Vladimir Rannev
Presented by the artists
Created with support of Teatro Massimo (Palermo), Lakhta Center (Saint Petersburg), Teatro Comunale (Bologna), and Badisches Staatstheater (Karlsruhe).
About the Artist
First formed as AES Group in 1987 by Arzamasova, Evzovich, and Svyatsky, the collective became AES+F when Fridkes joined in 1995. AES+F work at the intersection of traditional media, photography, video and digital technologies. They define their practice as a kind of "social psychoanalysis" through which they reveal and explore the values, vices and conflicts of contemporary global culture.
Their works appear in some of the world's principal collections of contemporary art, such as Moderna Museet (Stockholm), MOCAK (Kraków), Sammlung Goetz (Munich), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide), and the Museum of Old and New Art (Tasmania), Centre de Arte dos de Mayo (Madrid), Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris), the Vanhaerents Art Collection (Brussels), Taguchi Art Collection (Tokyo), and many others. Their work is also well represented in some of Russia's principal national museums, such as The State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), The State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), the National Center for Contemporary Art, and the Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow).
AES+F received Sergey Kuryokhin Award 2011, the main award of the Kandinsky Prize 2012, the main award of the NordArt Festival 2014, and Pino Pascali Prize 2015 (18th Edition) – all for the project Allegoria Sacra. AES+F were also awarded a Bronze Medal (2005) and a Gold Medal (2013) by the Russian National Academy of Fine Arts.
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