Russian art collective AES+F have created a new video piece, 'Reincarnation', exclusively for Wallpaper*. The 'digital painting' - a still of which fronts our Reigning in Russia issue limited edition subscriber cover - is now available to buy from digital art store s[edition], at a special price for Wallpaper* readers.
AES+F comprises conceptual artists, Tatiana Arzamasova and Lev Evzovich, graphic designer Evgeny Svyatsky and fashion photographer Vladimir Fridkes. The group, also recruited by Wallpaper* as advisory panellists for our Russian issue, have developed a signature style of photography and high-end production, producing surrealistic art films rife with mythological and theological imagery, leggy male and female models and sweeping scores.
The films marry the high and low, classical and contemporary, ugly and beautiful, real and artificial in what Evzovich describes as, 'the union of Calvin Klein and Caravaggio'.
'Reincarnation' itself stars white-clad stewardesses, sourced straight from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', an old man, a chubby-cheeked infant with a reptilian tail, be-suited singers, and men painted like skeletons, among others.
The still AES+F chose for Wallpaper's limited edition cover exemplifies the group's part slick, part humorous, part sadistic tone. Evzovich explains that the image - showing the child in the arms of the stewardesses - is a parody on Christmas, 'because, on the one hand, the baby is born as a reincarnation of a very old man who is present in the film,' he says. 'On the hand, this is the idea of some kind of new humanity, new man - maybe he will have a tail? We think humankind will have some kind of mutation in the future,' Evzovich adds with a chuckle.
The video work is one of growing collection of digital art pieces available to buy from s[edition]. Founded last year by Blain Southern co-founder Harry Blain and Robert Norton, it has already commissioned exclusive works from Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Bill Viola, Michael Craig-Martin and Wim Wenders. 'The digital format is one that many artists are already working in, and many more in the future will encompass as part of their practice,' says Blain.
Each piece is one of an edition of between 2,000 and 10,000 and costs from £5 to £500. Collectors get a virtual certificate signed by the artist and can store the work in a virtual vault and view it on smart phones, tablets and televisions.
Visit seditionart.com/wallpaper to buy 'Reincarnation' at the special Wallpaper* price.
AES+F chose a still from the film for the limited edition subscriber cover of our Reigning in Russia issue. The artists describe it as 'a parody on Christmas'
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