Ilya Kabakov

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Ilya Kabakov bigraphy, stories - Installation artist

Ilya Kabakov : biography

September 30, 1933 –

Ilya Kabakov (Russian: Илья́ Ио́сифович Кабако́в; born September 30, 1933), is a Russian-American conceptual artist of Jewish descent,http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:ATOKx0bwAOwJ:www.ilya-emilia-kabakov.com/biography.pdf+Ilya+Kabakov+Jewish&hl=en&gl=us born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. He worked for thirty years in Moscow, from the 1950s until the late 1980s. He now lives and works on Long Island. He was named by ArtNews as one of the "ten greatest living artists" in 2000.

Throughout his forty-year plus career, Kabakov has produced a wide range of paintings, drawings, installations, and theoretical texts — not to mention extensive memoirs that track his life from his childhood to the early 1980s. In recent years, he has created installations that evoked the visual culture of the Soviet Union, though this theme has never been the exclusive focus of his work. Unlike some underground Soviet artists, Kabakov joined the Union of Soviet Artists in 1959, and became a full-member in 1965. This was a prestigious position in the USSR and it brought with it substantial material benefits. In general, Kabakov illustrated children’s books for 3–6 months each year and then spent the remainder of his time on his own projects.

By using fictional biographies, many inspired by his own experiences, Kabakov has attempted to explain the birth and death of the Soviet Union, which he claims to be the first modern society to disappear. In the Soviet Union, Kabakov discovers elements common to every modern society, and in doing so he examines the rift between capitalism and communism. Rather than depict the Soviet Union as a failed Socialist project defeated by Western economics, Kabakov describes it as one utopian project among many, capitalism included. By reexamining historical narratives and perspectives, Kabakov delivers a message that every project, whether public or private, important or trivial, has the potential to fail due to the potentially authoritarian will to power.

Exhibitions and collectors

Ilya Kabakov had the first exhibition of a living Russian artist at the State Hermitage Museum in 2004.

He is in the collections of the Zimmerli Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg), Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim, The Hermitage, Tretjakov Gallery (Moscow), Norway Museum Of Contemporary Art, and museums in Colombus,Ohio, Frankfurt, Köln, etc.

Notes

Personal life

In 1989, Kabakov also began working with his niece, Emilia, who would later become his wife. In 1992 the Kabakovs moved to New York City, and later to Mattituck, NY.

Early life

Ilya Kabakov was born on September 30, 1933 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. His mother, Bertha Solodukhina, was Jewish. Ilya’s father, Joseph Kabakov, has been described as abusive. Ilya was evacuated during WWII to Samarkand with his mother. There he started attending the school of the Leningrad Academy of Art that was evacuated to Samarkand. His classmates included the painter Mikhail Turovsky.

Education

From 1945 to 1951, he studied at the Art School, Moscow; in 1957 he graduated from V.I. Surikov State Art Institute, Moscow, where he specialized in graphic design and book illustration.

The 1980s

Emigration to the West

Unlike many Soviet artists who emigrated to the West in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kabakov remained in Russia until 1987. His first trip to the West was to Graz, Austria when the Kunstverein gave him an artistic residency. Between 1988 and 1992, Kabakov claimed no permanent home yet stayed in the West, working and living only briefly in various countries. In comparison to many Soviet émigré artists, Kabakov was immediately successful and has remained so ever since. Between 1988 and 1989, he had exhibitions in New York, Bern, Venice, and Paris.

Installations

Between 1983 and 2000, Kabakov created 155 installations. Please see Kabakov’s Installations for descriptions of twelve of his best known.