Elmgreen & Dragset are the subject of a major retrospective titled 2020 at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (hereafter EMMA) in Helsinki, Finland, in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their collaboration. The artist duo reinterprets familiar spatial structures and cultural stereotypes that surround us today with their signature criticality and subversive wit. The exhibition space, transformed into a familiar yet surreal parking lot environment, provides a unique perspective to how we perceive the year 2020, throughout these unprecedented times caused by the pandemic. 

The parking lot, displaying cars and traffic signs along with Elmgreen & Dragset’s site-specific installations, delivers a seemingly familiar yet uncannily peculiar atmosphere. Sculptural installations including The Outsiders (2020), portraying two men lying together in the back of an old Mercedes estate car, followed by The Wait (2013-2020) and I Must Make Amends (2018), focus on the social properties and implications of the automobile—a private property owned by a majority of people today—revealing the perceptions and power structures in our society. The artist duo uses the parking lot—a public yet mobile environment—as a metaphor for the circumstances we face in 2020, where space and time have become temporary. Running through the works is an underlying concern for the loss of togetherness and a culture that emphasizes the individual within a post-pandemic community. Released in accordance with the exhibition, the Finnish rapper Paperi T’s new song and performancecan be seen via the museum’s website.