Engravings in the genre of “World Upside Down”, known since the 16th century, depict such scenes as a pig gutting the butcher, a child punishing his teacher, a man carrying a donkey on his back, man and woman exchanging roles and dress, and a beggar in rags magnanimously bestowing alms on a rich man. These engravings contain demons, chimeras, fish flying through the sky and death itself, variously with a scythe or in the mask of a plague doctor.

Mundus – the Latin “world” and Inverso – is both an Italian “reverse, the opposite” and the Old Italian “poetry,” which alludes to the art processing. In AES+F’s interpretation, the absurdist scenes from the medieval carnival appear as episodes of contemporary life in a multichannel video installation. Characters act out scenes of absurd social utopias and exchange masks, morphing from beggars to rich men, from policemen to thieves. Metrosexual street-cleaners are showering the city with refuse. Female inquisitors torture men on IKEA-style structures. Children and seniors are fighting in a kickboxing match. Inverso Mundus is a world where chimeras are pets and the Apocalypse is entertainment.

“Inverso Mundus” was created with the generous support of Blavatnik Family Foundation (USA) and Faena Art Foundation (Argentina), and with kind assistance from Fortuny (Italy-USA), PhotoFactory (Russia) and Triumph Gallery (Russia)