Ilja Karilampi confronts the contemporary urban individual and its relationship with mass- and pop-cultural memory. He takes alternative turns at legitimising and subverting rap culture, tweaks documentary traditions to suit his own tastes and interests, and writes books like motors or mixtapes. He samples and resamples, collaborates and corroborates across a wide variety of media: from videos to sound installations, from UV-lit fluo paints to publications, sculptures and radio shows, all filtered through a set of abstract references siphoned from personal experience.

Ilja Karilampi, born 1983, is a Swedish artist based in Berlin and a graduate of Frankfurt’s Städelschule and Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Art. Selected solo exhibitions include Xxxercise at Suzanne Geiss Company in New York (2014), Big Bird at Wilkinson Gallery in London (2014), Hendrix Incident at IBB-Lounge at Berlinische Galerie in Berlin (2013), The Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap at MoMA PS1 in New York (2012) and h00dumentary at On-Blocks with Sandy Brown Berlin (2011). Selected group shows include Lunch Bytes at Goethe-Institut in Helsinki (2014), 911,000 BC at Grand Century in New York (2014), Unstable Media at Gallery Martin van Zomeren in Amsterdam (2013), Collapse at Fluxia in Milan (2013), Realness Respect at Kunstverein Medienturm in Graz (2012), Based in Berlin at Kunstwerke Berlin (2011) and 21^st Century at Chisenhale Gallery in London (2010).