Ilja Karilampi

In the video ”The Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap” (2009) Ilja Karilampi explores a rumour that Dr Dre studied to become an architect before joining the N.W.A. Seeing that work as a starting point, Karilampi has gone on to create a series of exhibitions and pieces that aestethically play with vinyl stickers, video graphics, UV lights, aluminium engravings, soundtracks, literary texts, spatial expectations of time & space, and a kind of ”non-performative” way of execution and presentation.

Site-specific, conceptual installations, tied together by Karilampi´s very frontline aestethics, have included MoMA PS1, New York, Wilkinson Gallery, London, New Jerseyy, Basel, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sandy Brown, LISTE, Basel, President Room, Absolut Art Bar, Stockholm, and ARS17, Kiasma, Helsinki.

Ilja Karilampi is also involved in an array of activities very close to his practice, whether it be thai boxing, doing radio shows, club label promotion, or public artworks in his hometown Göteborg.