Next week, Amos Rex ends the summer with a 24-hour retrospective exhibition of Tony Cokes’s video works

The exhibition presents the American artist Tony Cokes’ video works as a one-day-only experience, complemented by live performances in an urban setting. The programme features Vladislav Delay (Sasu Ripatti) and the Sonic Wilderness Remix group, made up of musicians active in Finland, including AGF (Antye Greie-Ripatti), Islaja and Cucina Povera. 

The event transforms the museum’s Bio Rex cinema, corridors, façade and the Lasipalatsi Square into a vibrant arena for music, screenings and artistic interventions. 

The programme includes a t-shirt-printing workshop using slogans drawn from Cokes’ works. In addition, an artist talk will take place with Tony Cokes, curator and writer Bhavisha Panchia, and PUBLICS’ artistic director Paul O’Neill. 

Since the late 1980s, Tony Cokes has redefined media by interweaving textual, musical and visual elements. He creates multi-layered video works from fragments of history and pop culture, and constructs an incisive critique of media, power, anti-Blackness, consumerism and contemporary political discourse. 

This retrospective, realised in close collaboration with the artist, brings some of his key works to Helsinki for the first time. 24 hours with Tony Cokes is curated by PUBLICS and Bhavisha Panchia, in collaboration with Amos Rex. 

"We are so excited to be working together with PUBLICS and Tony Cokes on what promises to be an extraordinary curatorial event. The idea to take over the whole area around the museum is something that came naturally in this process and Tony’s extraordinary works will be like a glitch in the system, a new way of seeing this public space and the digital screens that we all live with and pass by every day. We look forward to amusing, entertaining and provoking passers-by and visitors alike in an intense 24-hour period in September", says Museum Director Kieran Long.  

The exhibition begins on Friday, 12 September at 6:00 am and continues for 24 hours until Saturday, 13 September at 6:00 am. The programme runs at Bio Rex and the Amos Rex Shop from 11:00 to 20:00, and on Lasipalatsi Square until 22:00. 

Programme:  

11:00–17:00 Pop up Silkscreen T-shirts with selection of excerpts; bring your own T-shirt! In collaboration with Makia 
15:30–17:30 Solo performances: Sonic Wilderness with Islaja, AGF, Cucina Povera 
17:30–18:30 Artist Talk: Tony Cokes, Paul O'Neill, and Bhavisha Panchia, moderated by Kieran Long 
18:45–19:45 Live performance: Sonic Wilderness Remix; AGF, Islaja and Cucina Povera 
20:00–22:00 Live performance: Vladislav Delay (Sasu Ripatti)