Tommy Cash

Conceptual artist Tommy Cash (b. 1991, Tallinn) is known for his depiction of contemporary life through a lens of a generation born in the transitional period between the collapse of the USSR and its imaginary and the global triumph of neoliberal capitalism. He works in different mediums, including music, video, photo installation, sculpture, painting, ready-made and merchandise.

Tommy has reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide with his distinctive visual style, absurdist imagery and depraved sense of humour. Still, there’s much more to him than shock, irony and comedy. Addressing the lost generation of intermission in history, he uncovers and makes visible the aesthetics of ideological hauntology. He fills the work with references to the seemingly dead past, which reappears in the present and significantly influences how we imagine our futures. His methods of arriving at these difficult theory questions might seem crude but are honest and raw. Cash uses his platform to confront uncomfortable prejudices and champion inclusivity, sexual freedom, and body positivity - depriving those issues of ideological veneer of ownership by particular political groups. His radically democratic and horizontal attitude to processing the nowness transgresses national, spatial and temporal borders and categories. As a creative of transdisciplinary nature, he operates on the broad horizon of visual culture - which covers art, design and fashion. 

Cash often plays with pop cultural icons, symbols, and his own body image. The rich and colourful visual language that runs through Cash’s works is often sight-specific; sound and lighting play an essential role in his presentations. Tommy Cash’s project 'Nukerashka' was presented at "Rayon Jouets" exhibition at Hangar Y, Meudon (2024) and at Paris Internationale (2022), his joint exhibition with fashion designer Rick Owens “The Pure and The Damned” was staged at KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn (2019); he also recently collaborated with Maison Martin Margiela and Adidas.