Exhibition of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov "How to Meet an Angel"

This summer, next to the Garage Museum of Modern Art, an installation of the conceptualists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov “How to Meet an Angel” will appear. Today, the tandem of Ilya and Emilia is without exaggeration the most recognizable phenomenon of Russian art on the international cultural map. Along with painting, objects, books, albums, mock-ups and graphics, the Kabakovs are famous for their total installations - spaces that recreate a situation, atmosphere or mise-en-scene in every detail and detail.

The large-scale installation "How to Meet an Angel", which, according to the authors, is an integral part of the surrounding landscape, will be shown for the first time in Russia. The work is a staircase of several designs, which rises into the sky of a small, modestly dressed person. His hands are turned to heaven, he - most likely in vain - is waiting for a meeting with an angel. However, there is still a chance to meet, this implies a performative part of the project, which was conceived by the authors specifically for display at the Garage Museum.

Such a romantic plot and title refer to the enduring theme in the work of the duet - the desire of a small person to break out of his predictable, fragile world. Along with this, the installation is inextricably linked with another repetitive image in the work of artists - the image of flight. It is embodied in two diametrically opposite forms. In a fly, as in the most mundane, everyday being, originating from the dimension of Soviet communal life, and in an angel - a pure, unearthly, mystical being, representing a world that is unattainable.

The project continues the long-term cooperation of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov with the Garage Museum. The duo’s exhibition opened the first Garage building in 2008, and in 2013 at the Pioneer Pond in Gorky Park, opposite the temporary Garage pavilion, designed by Shigeru Ban, their “Ship of Tolerance” was located. In 2018, for the 85th anniversary of Ilya Kabakov, the Garage Museum prepared a documentary called Poor People. Kabakovs ”, dedicated to the creative path of artists.

Biographies

Ilya Kabakov (born 1933, Dnepropetrovsk) is the most sought-after Russian artist in the world, one of the key figures in Moscow conceptualism, the creator of the genre of total installation. In 1951 he graduated from the Department of Graphics of the Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikova, from this time on, illustrated magazines and children’s books. Around the 1960s, he began to create works in various techniques that laid the foundations of “Moscow conceptualism”. In the 1980s, he began to create installations in which he recreated the atmosphere of Soviet communal life. The most famous of them is “The Man Who Flew Into Space from His Room” (1982; National Museum of Modern Art - Georges Pompidou Center, Paris). This work becomes the first of a series of total installations - large-scale projects involving work with large spaces. In the second half of the 1980s, Kabakov began to exhibit and work actively in Europe and the USA. At the same time, his wife, Emilia Kabakova, became his permanent co-author.

Emilia Kabakova (born 1945, Dnepropetrovsk) studied at the Central School of Music (Moscow) in 1952–1958, studied music at Irkutsk and Dnepropetrovsk in music schools in 1962–1966, and studied Spanish and literature in the 1969–1972 Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov. In 1973 she emigrated to Israel, since 1975 lives in the United States. Since 1989, he has been working together with Ilya Kabakov, in 1992 he becomes his wife.

Artists live and work in the USA. In Russia, their personal exhibitions were held at the State Tretyakov Gallery (2003, 2018), the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2003, 2013), and the State Hermitage (2004, 2013, 2018).