Ilya Kabakov 30.09.1933

If we consider contemporary art to be a straight line, like a ruler, then Malevich would be the starting point — “0”. And Kabakov would be number one. In any case, he is number one of the few whom people hold their breath when examining his work in galleries and museums around the world.

Kabakov made a breakthrough. After gathering together all the Soviet rubbish, he sculpted from it his own model of the universe, writing its laws and rules. In Kabakov’s installations of the Soviet system, it is a microcosm of cause and effect connections on which it is possible to trace the history of the entire epoch. The term "total installation", which was devised by the artist, indicates a type of piece that cannot be examined from the side — it is necessary to enter and settle into it.

Ilya Kabakov is the leader of the most successful direction of Soviet art — conceptualism. Kabakov (simultaneously with Pivovarov) devised a new genre — an album, a collection of sheets with drawings and texts.

“Lately I’ve had the crazy desire to reflect the entire life of our Soviet society, not to pass up a single sheet of paper, because there was the hope that we would all be revived together.” (I. Kabakov).