American artist, poet, musician and DJ Juliana Huxtable uses painting, photography, video, performance, music and writing in her interdisciplinary practice that plays with language, imagination and performativity. More recently, her visual works have combined cartoonishness, interspeciesism, body painting and posing for the camera, as well as explored queer desire and gaze through a celebration of the body in an often overtly feminine and sexualised performance.

The music video Pretty Canary (2023), made with Tongue in the Mind (Huxtable, Jealous Orgasm & Via App), brings together the different registers of Huxtable’s creativity. Huxtable has long used her poetry in her music, but with Tongue in the Mind her writing has taken on a new, vibrant musicality. For her, part of the enjoyment of songwriting is the way it resembles the old-school notion of poetry with its playfulness with rhyme, cadence and rhythm.

Tongue in the Mind is rooted in performance art, and the members of the ensemble are united by years of collaboration on various performance and musical projects. Although their aesthetic and temporal range is broad, the common thread is found somewhere between glam, goth and club music that invites you into a euphoric state. In addition to the vocals and lyrics, Huxtable is responsible for the artistic concept, storyline and animation of Pretty Canary. The result is an unashamedly sensual, dizzying and psychedelic Gesamtkunstwerk, whose metaphors and visions tempt us to taste the berry offered by the pretty little bird.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency.