Ilya Kabakov, an artist born in the Soviet Union, who created a lot in Moscow, where he founded the school of conceptualism, has said goodbye. In 1992, he moved to New York and in the same year married Emilio Lekač, also a Soviet artist.
Ilija Kabakov was “a man who spent his whole life in his world of fantasy utopia, left this world surrounded by his loved ones just before his 90th year,” are according to the French press agency AFP recorded at the Ilje and Emilie Kabakov Foundation upon the artist’s death.
Inspired by classical Russian art and socialist realismKabakov was born in 1933 in the then Soviet city of Dnipropetrovsk (today’s Ukrainian Dnipro) to Jewish parents. Between 1945 and 1951 he studied at an art school in Moscow, in 1957 he graduated from the Surikov State Art Institute in Moscow, where he specialized in graphic design and book illustration. During his schooling, he was inspired by classical Russian art and socialist realism, which was considered the official art of the Soviet Union. After graduation, he became a children’s book illustrator because other artistic expression was forbidden. During this time he shared a studio with a fellow artist To Ul Sooster.
In the 1970s he began experimenting with abstract expressionism and neo-realism, and until 1978 he worked as a conceptual artist. He was one of the central members of the Moscow Conceptualists, who are now recognized as the main Soviet avant-garde group. In the decade that followed, he was unable to exhibit in public spaces, so he held private exhibitions in his apartment.
Paintings and installations of the artistic couple also in SloveniaIn 1985, he went to Paris for his first solo exhibition at the Dina Vierny Gallery, and later moved to Austria for a six-month residency at the Kunstverein in Graz. In 1992, he moved to the USA and a year later represented Russia at the Venice Biennale, according to the website of the MG+MSUM museum. The Kabaks also visited Slovenia. In 1995, at the invitation of the Modern Gallery, they created an installation in the Small Gallery The story of a culturally relocated man. In 2007, he and Emilia exhibited paintings and installations in the lobby of the TR3 high-rise building. The exhibition covered more than 20 years of their creation.
A bunch of exhibitions and laurels around the worldThis inseparable artistic couple, who have exhibited all over the world, have received several prestigious international awards and recognitions for their work. Ilya and Emilija Kabakov were awarded the French title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, they are also recipients of the Oskar Kokoschka, praemium imperiale and El Greco lifetime achievement awards. They were named honorary members of the Vienna University of the Arts, the Moscow Academy of Arts, the Paris Sorbonne University and the University of Bern.
Upon the news of the artist’s death, the foundation did not specify either the place where he died or the place where he lived for the last few days. They announced that a close family funeral will be organized in the coming days, and a public memorial ceremony is being prepared in a few weeks. At the same time, everyone who would like to donate financial resources is asked to dedicate them to an artistic and social project The Ship of Tolerance (The Ship of Tolerance), which was founded by the Kabak couple years ago, AFP also states.
Source: Rtvslo
