To download the press release, click here.

To download the gallery guide, click here.

Aïda Ruilova: The Singles 1999 - Now
September 12, 2008- January 4, 2009

This fall, the Contemporary proudly presents Aïda Ruilova’s premier solo U.S. museum exhibition, The Singles 1999 – Now. Aïda Ruilova creates dark, narrative video works in which cryptic characters and actions conjoin with horror movie aesthetics and elements of the sublime. Using classical cinematic devices and distinctively jarring, low-tech sensibility, Ruilova’s work is imbued with strong formal and associative relationships to music, as well as more visceral experiences of discrete sounds. The audio portion of her videos feature the muttering of evocative or repetitive phrases, heavy breathing, scrunching guitar strings, or vinyl LPs being scraped across cement. These sounds serve to reinforce both the physicality of her editing style, as well as the isolation, claustrophobia, and extreme psychological stresses alluded to throughout her work. Ruilova—a classically-trained musician and member of the experimental music group Alva—is one of a young generation of artists who employ media with a do-it-yourself aesthetic, often drawing upon contexts—like cinema, music, and popular culture—that exist outside the art world.

Co-curated by Aspen Art Museum Director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Director Paul Ha, Aïda Ruilova: The Singles 1999 – Now is a comprehensive survey of her single-channel video work since 1999.

EXHIBITION TOUR
Aspen Art Museum: May 29 - August 10, 2008
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis: September 12, 2008 - January 4, 2009
Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada: January 24 - March 15, 2009
Contemporary Art Center New Orleans: April 11 - July 14, 2009
Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland: September 11, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Image Credits: Aïda Ruilova: The Singles 1999 - Now, installation view at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2008. Photos by David Ulmer.

Support for the exhibition catalogue is generously provided by Toby Devan Lewis; Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin; and Salon 94, New York.

General support for the Contemporary’s exhibitions program is generously provided by the Whitaker Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; William E. Weiss Foundation; Regional Arts Commission; Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; Arts and Education Council; Nancy Reynolds and Dwyer Brown; and members of the Contemporary Art Museum
St. Louis.