Gatherings in Ilya Kabakov’s Studio

1/5Artists and friends at Ilya Kabakov’s studio, (l–r): Sergei Letov, George Kiesewalter, Ilya Kabakov, Josef Backshtein, and Dmitri Prigov. (courtesy of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)

1/5Kabakov showing work to Andrei Monastyrski. (courtesy of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)

1/5Kabakov showing work to artists and friends (left to right): Andrei Monastyrski, Lev Rubinshtein, Viktor Skersis, and Nikita Alekseev. (courtesy of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)

1/5Kabakov displaying his albums in his studio. (courtesy of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)

1/5Artists and guests at Ilya Kabakov’s studio, (l–r) Alik Chachko, Irina Golovinskaia, unidentified woman, Vladimir Sorokin, Lev Rubinstein, D.A. Prigov, Viktoria Mochalova, Andrei Monastyrski, and Kabakov, ca. 1985–86. (courtesy of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)

Soon after Ilya Kabakov built his sixth-floor attic studio on Sretensky Boulevard and until his emigration in 1987, the space became a meeting place for Moscow’s unofficial artists, particularly for those who would eventually be associated with Moscow Conceptualism. Artists, poets, philosophers, critics, gathered there to discuss new work or for festive occasions.[1] Starting in the mid-1970s, Kabakov began to “perform” a series of conceptual albums. He used his training as a book illustrator to create metaphysical or conceptual narratives on sheets of gray or white paper. The readings would consist of Kabakov slowly turning the pages and reading the texts of these albums before a seated audience for periods that could last hours. In a short text from the time, entitled “…the point is in the turning of the pages,” Kabakov attempts to describe the sense of pure time that occurs in these durational performances, a concern that is echoed in the work of other Moscow Conceptualists such as the poet Lev Rubinstein with his index card poems, or the Collective Actions group with their actions for Trips Out of the City.

See also Matthew Jesse Jackson, The Experimental Group: Ilya Kabakov, Moscow Conceptualism, Soviet Avant-Gardes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

Documents:

Ilya Kabakov – “…the point is in the turning of the pages” – artist’s text (1970s)

Ilya Kabakov – excerpt 60-e – 70-e… Zapiski o neofitsial’noi zhizni v Moskve [1960s-1970s… Notes on unofficial life in Moscow – memoirs (1982)