AES+F is a collective of four Russian artists, T. Arzamasova, L. Evzovich, E. Svyatsky and V. Fridkes, working at the intersection of traditional media, photography, video and digital technologies. The group formed as AES in 1987 and became AES+F when Fridkes joined in 1995. They define their practice as “social psychoanalysis”, through which they explore the values, vices and conflicts of contemporary global culture.
Their Islamic Project (1999) shows Western postcard city landscapes manipulated to appear colonized by Islam. In 2007 they showed Last Riot in the Russian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. The photographic series Allegoria Sacra (2012) satirically depicts diverse civilizations, religions and races in an airport. The panoramic video installation Inverso Mundus was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2015 and had its Canadian premiere at the ELEKTRA festival in 2017. The 39-minute film animates stylised photographs and 3D renderings of absurd role reversals, set to music by composers including Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Liszt. A 2025 solo show at Tang Contemporary Art in Hong Kong, “Inverso Mundus: City of Chimeras”, added new oil paintings of the film's chimeras.
