Born Tomas Tammemets in November 1991, the Estonian rapper and singer Tommy Cash, a.okay.a Kanye East, is understood for spitting rhymes that ship uncanny depictions of post-Soviet life. His music combines cloud rap, exhausting dance, and Baltic beats with excessive and low tradition references (“Gopnik within the streets, Dostoyevsky within the sheets,” he sings within the monitor Dostoyevsky), together with loads of artwork references. The viral video for his tune Winaloto was impressed by a visit to the Louvre, that includes Money surrounded by dancers who contort themselves into pyramids, landscapes, musical devices, even a throne.
Like his music, Money himself just isn’t really easy to outline. He strikes effortlessly from collaborations with Diplo and Boys Noize to genre-defying, gender-fluid reside performances (assume Peaches meets IC3PEAK meets Wu Tsang) to designing streetwear impressed by the bootleg Adidas bought at Nineties mega bazaars of the Baltic area. Following his sophomore album, “¥€$,” which options business majors like Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek, he’s now working with manufacturers reminiscent of Maison Margiela and Rick Owens.
Half gopnik slav, half high-fashion muse, Money has solid a profession by focusing not on a single self-discipline, however on an orgy of them, growing hybrid music, trend, and set up initiatives. However above all, he needs you to know that he’s an artist.
“Whether or not in artwork, trend, music, or design, every part I do is impressed by the Tommy Money manner of being,” he informed me final spring whereas sporting a kilt with a gray tank prime atop Spain’s Catalonia Barcelona Plaza lodge. “I don’t see the distinction between creating an Ikea couch and utilizing my music to achieve the world. It’s a cluster fuck, yeah—nevertheless it works.”
The Tommy Money manner of being, for what it’s price, is a bit like a field of goodies—you by no means know what you’re gonna get. He’s simply as prone to make his subsequent look at a khrushchyovka (a grim Soviet house block) as he’s at a couture present. Earlier this month, Money turned up sporting a paparazzi-style digital camera at Balenciaga’s spring-summer 2023 Paris Trend Week presentation, which noticed his Western nickname-sake stroll down a mud-covered runway designed by artist Santiago Sierra.
Tommy Money at Balenciaga’s spring-summer 2023 present in Paris. Courtesy of Yulia Shadrinski.
Sipping water a couple of hours earlier than he was to take the stage at Sónar, Money relayed to me the trajectory of his life and profession, and the way rising up within the slums of Estonia with a “mash up of Estonian, Russian, and Ukrainian ancestry” has formed his identification. Most of all, he feels that in terms of making artwork for a large viewers, it’s vital to remain true to your roots—and he appears hell-bent on blinging up the hoods of Jap Europe and past.
The hip-hop star has a lot in frequent along with his Western counterpart: “Once I grew up, I dropped out of college as a result of everybody was lame as fuck,” he stated. “I spotted fairly early that society’s expectations had been nowhere close to my very own.
“I by no means cared what anybody considered me, whether or not it was how I appeared or carried out,” he continued. “So I simply took that vibe and ran.”
Tommy Money with buddy and collaborator Rick Owens on the designer’s spring-summer 2023 Males’s Paris Trend Week present. Courtesy of Yulia Shadrinski.
Certainly: In June, he confirmed up for the Rick Owens spring-summer 2023 Males’s Paris Trend Week present fully bare, save for the thigh-length hair protecting his genitals. Beforehand, Money and Owens collaborated on a sequence of initiatives, from the 2018 monitor MONA LISA to the 2019 exhibition “The Pure and The Damned” at Kumu Artwork Museum in Estonia, the place Money exhibited, amongst different issues, his personal sperm.
Now, he’s presenting a solo present at Paris Internationale with Temnikova & Kasela (till October 23), a gallery from Tallinn that additionally represents artists like Katja Novitskova, Kaarel Kurismaa, Nik Kosmas, and Kris Lemsalu.
“Tommy’s work contributes to one of the helpful cultural discourses of our time,” his gallerist, Olga Temnikova, informed Artnet Information. “For those who take a look at the state of affairs in Ukraine right this moment, the breakdown of communication, the linguistic and ethnic strains dividing the battle, he transcends these worlds in a manner that feels recent and poignant.”
A view of the Tommy Money set up at Paris Internationale, 2022. Courtesy of Temnikova & Kasela.
The sales space is about up as a darkish and unusual tribute to a well-liked Russian cartoon, Cheburashka—a cute furry animal well-liked in lots of post-Soviet international locations. On show are giant and small variations of Money’s “Nukerashka” sculpture (retailing from €2,500, or $2,440, to €45,000, or $43,980), that includes a smiling, totem-like Cheburashka that has nuclear clouds billowing out from its ears. With Europe getting ready to nuclear battle, the sculpture, set towards a map of the world, feels potently ominous.
“Nukerashka” hoodies are additionally on provide for €200 every, with twenty 5 p.c of the proceeds going to the the Ukrainian Cultural Center, an NGO that helps individuals who have been displaced and who’re near the frontline in Ukraine.
“Tommy has reached a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide along with his distinctive visible fashion, absurdist imagery, and wicked humorousness,” Temnikova stated. “He speaks the language of a pan-Slavic hip-hop people hero.”
Is it artwork? Who cares. It’s Money’s world, we’re all simply dwelling in it.
Tommy Money is displaying a brand new physique of artworks within the sales space of Temnikova & Kasela Gallery at Paris Internationale till October 23, 2022.
Extra Trending Tales:
Click Here to See Our Latest Artnet Auctions, Live Now
Observe Artnet News on Fb:
Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.
