Ilya Orlov is an artist and scholar whose work integrates theoretical reflection, humour, and critical revision of modern and contemporary art. Born in Leningrad in 1973 and based in Finland since 2015, he received the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki, in 2025.
Orlov’s artistic practice spans installation, drawing, painting, sculpture, and text, staging collisions between image and language, word and object, and the authentic and fictional. His work has been shown internationally at Manifesta 10 (2014), Gus Fisher Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand, 2024), and Kunstverein zu Rostock (Germany, 2024–2025). In 2018, he was shortlisted for the Finnish Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. In 2023, Orlov presented a large solo show at the Forum Box gallery in Helsinki.
Orlov’s artistic and scholarly interests include Conceptual art, global conceptualism, Soviet underground, the critical revision of the legacies of Modernism and Postmodernism, and the administrative language of art institutions and its role in framing contemporary art.
Orlov is co-founder and co-editor of Shy Plumber, an independent international art journal published in Finland, known for its anti-war and anti-authoritarian stance.
Orlov’s monograph Aesthetics, De-Aestheticisation, Abstraction: Reflections on the Philosophy of Art after the Avant-Garde and Conceptualism (The Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki, 2025), written from the standpoint of an artist–theorist, proposes a framework for reconnecting philosophical theory of art with contemporary art praxis.
Orlov’s artistic and scholarly projects have received support from Kunstverein zu Rostock, the Oskar Öflund Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP), Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts, and the Nordea Art Foundation Finland.
Education
The Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki. Doctor of Fine Arts. 2025.
St. Petersburg State University / Bard College, New York. Master of Arts and Humanities. 2013.
St. Petersburg State University / Bard College, New York. Bachelor of Arts and Humanities. 2007.
Exhibitions (Selected)
Ei numeroa – collaborative exhibition between doctoral researchers and alumni from the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki and Elam School of Fine Arts at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Tekniikan museo, Helsinki, Finland. 2025.
Kunstverein zu Rostock Stipendiatenausstellung. Schleswig-Holstein Haus Rostock, Germany. February 2025.
Tedi Holm: Honest Deception (in collaboration with Steffen Dürre). Kunstverein zu Rostock, Germany. 2024.
Eight Thousand Layers of Moments. Gus Fisher gallery, Auckland, New Zealand. 2024.
Claws and Connections – All the World’s Senses. Kuva/Tila. Helsinki, Finland. 2024.
God out of a Washing Machine / Jumala pesukoneesta. Forum Box, Helsinki, Finland. 2023.
Quantum Critic 2021. Myymälä2, Helsinki, Finland. 2021.
Functional Art. HIAP. Helsinki, Finland. 2020.
Shy Plumber Exhibition #1 (co-curated by Ilya Orlov). Alkovi Gallery, Helsinki, Finland. 2020-2021.
Conflict of the Faculties. Theatre Academy, Helsinki, Finland. 2019.
A Piece of Art. Love&Money Gallery, Helsinki, Finland. 2019
Monument to a Scientific Error. Kallio Library. Helsinki, Finland. 2018.
The Very Last Futurist Exhibition. Merz Sammonkatu. Tampere, Finland. 2018.
The Story of How Nicholas II and Magician Papus Secretly Conducted a Spiritist Seance Aimed to Prevent the Revolution, and Failed. Hiekan Taidemuseo. Tampere, Finland. 2017. (curated by Ilya Orlov)
Rab-Rab Journal Committee show at Tüyap Ütopya. Istanbul, Turkey. 2017.
Museum of the Museum. CheckPoint Helsinki. Helsinki, Finland. 2017.
Red Rijeka Assembly. SIZ Gallery in Kortil Gallery, Rijeka, Croatia. 2017.
Finnish Landscape. Seurasaari Open-Air Museum. Helsinki, Finland. 2016
A Revolutionary Museum After Ideology. MANIFESTA 10. 2014.
Publications
Orlov, Ilya. Aesthetics, De-Aestheticisation, Abstraction: Reflections on the Philosophy of Art After the Avant-Garde and Conceptualism. (Printed version of the Theory vol. of Doctoral thesis). Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. Helsinki, 2025.
Orlov, Ilya. Aesthetics, De-Aestheticisation, Abstraction, and Five Efforts in Themes and Methods (Doctoral thesis, online publication). Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. Helsinki, 2025.
‘Metafyysinen pesukone / Metaphysical Washing Machine’. In Kynsiä ja kytköksiä – kaikki maailman aistittava / Claws and Connections – All the World’s Senses edited by Denise Ziegler, Maiju Loukola, Mika Elo, Haidi Motola. Academy of Fine Arts, Doctoral Programme in Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. Helsinki, 2024.
‘An Accident in the Factory’; ‘Helsinki-Auckland Express’; ‘Luck, Chance, Glitch, and Coincidence’. In: Un/Luck [publication of the Un/Luck research exhibition project]. Helsinki, and Auckland, NZ, 2023.
Orlov, Ilya, and Matthew Cowan, and Andrey Ustinov. ‘Editorial’. Shy Plumber, no. 3 (2022): 2-7.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘Medical Hermeneutics Proper’. Shy Plumber, no. 3 (2022): 108-114.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘Fragments on Art’. Shy Plumber, no. 1 (2020): 15–18.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘On the Museum of the Museum’. In Uncanny Interdependence. Remembrance and Disremembrance of the October Revolution. Exhibition catalogue and Symposium brochure. Checkpoint Helsinki, 2017. 4-9.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘A House with the View’. In Finnish Landscape edited by Inkeri Suutari and Joanna Warsza. Garret Publications and Checkpoint Helsinki, 2016. 120-128.
Orlov, Ilya, in conversation with Hanna Ohtonen. ‘National Landscape as a Verb’. In Finnish Landscape edited by Inkeri Suutari and Joanna Warsza. Garret Publications and Checkpoint Helsinki, 2016. 129-135.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘The Very Last Futurist Exhibition’. Rab-Rab: A Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Art, no. 3 (2016): 317–327.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘Gravity’. Rab-Rab: A Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Art, no. 3 (2016): 329–336.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘Marsovo Pole i Traur v Politike [The Field of Mars and Mourning in Politics]’. OpenLeft, 2015. http://openleft.ru/?p=5683.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘A Revolutionary Museum after Ideology’. CuMMA Papers, no. 14 (2015). https://cummastudies.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/cumma-papers-14.pdf.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘The Field of Mars: Revolution, Mourning, and Memory’. The Russian Reader, 2014.
Orlov, Ilya. ‘Traur i Prazdnik v Revolyutsionnoy Politike. Tseremoniya 23 Marta 1917 g. v Petrograde [March 23, 1917: Mourning and Celebration in Revolutionary Politics] (2007)’. Ab Imperio, 2012.
Press
Taide-lehti Magazine about Ilya Orlov (in Finnish): https://static.wixstatic.com/media/ef1450_ad59bdcd69094a93aa3bcc0883680681~mv2.jpg