ASPEN.- The Aspen Art Museum proudly presents Aïda Ruilova’s premier solo U.S. museum exhibition, The Singles: 1999 – Now. On view through August 7, 2008, the exhibition features a free public reception with the artist from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m., on Thursday, June 26.

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 portions 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.

Co-organized by the Aspen Art Museum and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Aïda Ruilova: The Singles 1999 – Now is a selective survey of her work since 1999. The exhibition will tour to three additional venues in the United States and Canada , and will also be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.

Aïda Ruilova was born in 1974 in Wheeling , West Virginia , and lives in New York . Ruilova's work has been featured in numerous international film festivals and museum exhibitions—including the 2004 Whitney Biennial, 50th Venice Biennale—as well as in exhibitions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center , White Columns, and the Moore Space. In 2006, she was shortlisted for the Guggenheim Hugo Boss Prize.