MOSCOW — Last Wednesday, Red October Gallery opened a show by famed conceptual artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov that symbolizes the civilization and culture of the now-collapsed USSR, where both artists were born and raised. First displayed in 1999 in Palermo, Italy, and running here through December 2, the vast “Monument to a Lost Civilization” includes 37 installations, consisting of 140 individual pieces, collages and artists’ texts and documents. They all feature personal representations of the artists’ experiences within a country that has now ceased to exist.
The pair had originally explored the idea of creating the show in a basement. Instead, at Red October gallery, they display it within a closed hall with no windows. This location is symbolic of the USSR, from today’s perspective — the audience is submerged into a cave-like atmosphere. “I was looking to create an image of the former Soviet Union,” Ilya Kabakov explained. “It is not an objective reality. This is the way I experienced it, so it is a truly subjective image. My desire to make this felt imperative when this civilization, planned to last for centuries, collapsed and vanished so suddenly and unexpectedly for its residents.”
The show at the Red October Gallery is just one event in a series marking the return visit of the now U.S.-based Kabakovs to the homeland of Moscow conceptualism. The artists are working on a Moscow edition of their long-running project The Ship of Tolerance, which features a constructed replica of an ancient Egyptian ship (20 by 7 meters with a girder height of 13 meters), decorated by stitched-together sails made by schoolchildren of varying social backgrounds. It will be opened to the public later this spring. Meanwhile, the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum is preparing for the exhibition “Lissitzky – Kabakov,” loaned from Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, and the duo is also in discussions with the State Tretyakov Gallery for the opportunity to create a new installation in one of its halls.
Ilya Kabakov (born on September 30, 1933 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, the former Soviet Union), is considered the most notable artist from the Moscow Conceptual school. In 2008, he and his wife Emilia were awarded the Praemium Imperiale award (an art prize created in 1989 on behalf of the Japan Art Association to recognize areas of achievement not covered by the Nobel prizes).
The Red October Gallery, a joint non-commercial project launched by the GUTA Group and the gallerist Vladimir Ovcharenko, stands out within Moscow’s local art scene in its work to promote contemporary art in collaboration with leading Russian artists, curators, and institutions. It received support for the current exhibition from the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Hermitage, the State Russian Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (which includes works of Ilya Kabakov in museum collections).
To see images from “Monument to a Lost Civilization” at Red October Gallery, click on the slideshow.