The Contemporary 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.

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