Two stories and quite a detective ending.
Markin's story about Kabakov, whose work he regularly buys, and the fascinating response of the Kabakovs, in which the artist's family simply drowned collector Markin in their own shit.

1. Markin's story.
Visiting Ilya Kabakov

Let's start off with
that all evening I vomited fish
carefully prepared by Emilia Kabakova

Now, in order
before asking me for $350,000 in sponsorship
Master's niece showed what they do
dozens of carefully made models of monuments and installations.
Their current business
participate in competitions
and implement large-scale projects
worth several million dollars, if won.
Projects are generally good.
but they are not made for the sake of creating a masterpiece
but for the same gain.

Among what I saw:

1. Wings, as in my collection,
produced in-line by two hired assistants
it's hard to even imagine what the total circulation

2. There are several stools in stock, the same as mine,
issued an additional edition of 5 pieces, only 10, maybe more.

And yet two hours from New York did not go to waste
Master spoke to us for 40 minutes
and, perhaps, said the main thing.

They also promised a lecture at the Museum in August
just not upset because of 350 thousand

2. And here is the amazing answer of Emilia Kabakova:

Emilia Kabakov has sent a reply to Igor Markin "s description of his visit (here on IZO, here in Russian on Markin" s blog) and asked me to post it; I am glad to do so.

Dear Igor,
I am sorry you got sick. Not that I believe it. Or maybe you should drink less?
I just want to say that it "s definitely not worth to show art to someone like you. You are not able to see it, not able to understand it, not able to appreciate it. You only see dollars sign in everything.
Yes, we do big projects. Yes we participate in the competitions, but we never did anything for money. Public projects never have millions of dollars in their budgets.
And unlike you we do respect art, culture, other people. But then we work with people, with art, and with cultural institutions.
I hope you feel better.

For those who do not speak English, all this is translated by the Moscow language like this:

Dear Igor,
I'm very sorry that you felt sick. Although I don't really believe in it. Maybe you just need to drink less? I just want to say that you definitely shouldn't show art to people like you. You are unable to see it, understand it, and are unable to appreciate it. You only see the dollar in everything. Yes, we do big projects. Yes, we participate in competitions, but we never did anything for money. Public projects have never had million-dollar budgets. And unlike you, we respect art, culture, other people. But then we work with people, with art and with cultural institutions.
I hope you feel better.

Let me express my humble opinion about this very valuable epistolary monument of Russian thought:
Markin's letter:
1. Rude, sarcastic, ironic.
2. Markin is overly harsh and frank.
3. Markin does not follow generally accepted norms of politeness and politeness.
4. Markin's letter reveals the commercial secrets of Emilia Kabakov and, at the same time, contains a reproach of her excessive love for money, which is detrimental to him, Markin, as a collector, because the replication of objects reduces their value, and Markin has already bought a number of Kabakov's objects and, by the way , for big money.

Emily's reply:
1. Contains a reciprocal inhumane spitting in the subject of poisoning.
2. Contains an accusation of drunkenness.
3. Emilia pretends to be uninterested in money. After all, one art object is made for the sake of art, but replicating them, as well as requests for sponsorship, is only for the sake of money. It is strange when people talk about their indifference to money to a person who has already been sold art goods for a large amount of money and has also been asked for a large amount of sponsorship.
4. Contains a number of rude personal attacks, and obviously objectively undeserved, because Markin is not only the creator of the first museum in Russia contemporary art, but also the buyer of the works of Kabakov himself, as well as a number of works by other artists, which, as you know, Kabakov himself highly appreciates.

Outcome:
For me, the rudeness and straightforwardness of Markin, who does not hide his love for money, was expected.
But for me, Emilia Kabakova's even greater rudeness and her unconvincing assurances of her indifference to money were a shocking surprise.
I have always treated the Kabakovs in the same way as I did the Groys, considering them to be subtle intellectuals, incapable of hypocrisy and rudeness. If a refined intellectual is spat on, he cannot respond with an even more powerful spit. Something is wrong in our art kingdom...

Ilya Kabakov. It must be said that the proposal to organize a pair exhibition - ours and Lissitzky's - which was once made by the directorate of Eindhoven, of course, at first insanely frightened and surprised. Everything said that this meeting was completely impossible, that this was a meeting of people who were strangers in spirit. The fact is that in our mental state we belong to a completely different period of life in the Soviet country.

And I had no interest at that time - the 1950s-1980s, when we lived in the USSR - there was no sympathy, one might say, for the avant-garde, except for some kind of abstract respect. I had no sense of continuing the aesthetic or substantive meaning of what was called the Russian avant-garde. In education, we had a complete temporary failure, as is well known, because for the Soviet people the avant-garde did not exist at all - neither in the educational, nor in the museum space. For me, it was a completely vanished era. This is the same as saying that you have some kind of relationship with antiquity. There was no antiquity, there was a loss of language and a loss of the meaning of what was said in this antiquity. We lived, as it seemed then, in forever stopped time. And there was a completely formed (finally, as we believed) Soviet official language Soviet art. Our education completely bypassed not only the Russian avant-garde, but the entire Western 20th century. We lived in some kind of total Soviet installation, which was staged for many millennia ahead; it was clear to everyone that she would not change. I want to say by this that there were no hopes for such a meeting with the avant-garde. But when such an unusually ambitious offer of a meeting with the classics “falls down” on you ...

Lissitzky worked on the creation of a new language in Vitebsk together with Malevich. The point is that humanity should speak adequately in the new era into which it moved in the 20th century, and finally receive from these great artists that visual language that can and should be spoken not only in Russia or England, but in everything globe. Universal new language for new people.

This language is associated with the influx, as they would now say, the "collision" of geometry on the whole world of art, on its entire scope and genres, including architecture, typography, etc. This is the invasion of geometric forms into organic forms - rounded and anthropomorphic. This is partly what Rodchenko said to his students: "Drop brushes, pencils, take a ruler, compasses and draw..." This gesture is directly related to the dominance of a straight line and clear geometry in general in thinking. The shortest way is in a straight line. This “straight” path is also associated with the idea that the world is moving faster and faster.

[…]

Who is the new man in the concept of the Russian avant-garde? It is a continuous creator. What Rodchenko writes about: “I am making a cup, but I don’t know what I will do tomorrow, because another idea will appear already of another me.” It's like a permanent creativity (like a permanent revolution).

[…]

The world should consist of creative, but, of course, managing people. The interesting thing is that management people have in mind their management employees. But those whom they will transform, they practically do not see. In a sense, this is a barnyard device. I am a shepherd or an agronomist in a laboratory, but everything else - animals, plants - is all the material that I will process.

This conversation about inhumanity (I use this word for the first time), this anti-humanistic, destructive moment is embedded in the most avant-garde project of creating a new human creator. The rest of humanity, living in this world, suddenly remains outside the brackets.

The phenomenon of power that is secretly present at the forefront - and the most frightening - is the right to take the initiative to create new world and manage it.

Olga Sviblova. […] No one knows where, but we are moving. There is a feeling that we must move forward. Today, when this vector of movement has disappeared, when we are leaning here and there, interest in the Russian avant-garde has doubled. Why do you think it happens that the world does not see this second side of the Russian avant-garde and the second side of the greatest Lissitzky, who created blocks for us, elements, like in Lego, so that not only children, but the whole world would play in them? He rethought the real visual reality, but forgot the human content.

Ilya Kabakov. This happened not only with the concept of "Russian avant-garde". This is the transition from the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, when the type of artist, the self-consciousness of the artist has changed. Prior to this, the artist was a service staff. He participated in the performance of those works that he was ordered by other people, other organizations, or individuals, or the church, or the state.

This autonomization of the artist from the customer, from that "other" with whom he must communicate, produces incredibly strong changes in the artist's psyche. The artist goes from being a performer to being a genius. That is, a creature that absolutely does not owe anyone in any way.

Emilia Kabakova. And he doesn't answer for anything.

Ilya Kabakov. Everything else is covered in fog. The transformation of an artist from a performer into a genius is a very important mutation. A real mutation of the anthropological level.

The appearance of Cezanne on the artistic horizon was the most important event in the art world. Here is this unfinished "dirty" squares ... Now, of course, I'm being ironic, because I deify him the same way as before. But it is very important that the appearance of an amateur and an inventor of his own visual system, different from the academic school, turned out to be an important step towards the liberation of the artist from all sorts of criteria of artistic tradition. In this case, I speak literally as a Soviet art critic, but there is some truth to this.

This “detachment” from trust in the art school is very important at this moment. It's like a betrayal of the art school. I must say that this situation was repeated in Soviet times. My training in the arts and crafts was completely imitative. I didn't like to draw nature. But I knew how to imitate an academic result so that I would not be kicked out of the institute. I didn't like doing children's illustrations, but I knew how to imitate children's illustration so that I could get paid money for it.

If the art editor saw that I was not sincerely drawing a hare, but imitating the image of a hare in other books, of course, he would kick me out of the publishing house. But in Soviet times it was indifferent: whether I believe or copy some other people's hares. This moment of “sticking off”, lies, betrayal is very important for the emergence of the avant-garde psychology of a genius. Here there is a distance between the obligation to portray something and my own manipulative impulse. Then it looked like a new revolution: the transition from slavery to freedom and invention.

Ilya Kabakov. There was a completely different attitude to the means of creating a picture.

The appearance of the avant-garde is connected with the autonomy of means. Since there is nothing else for which I use my funds, they are autonomized and represent new incredible opportunities.

For example, the color of Matisse. Manipulation of color on the surface of the picture, compositions, combinations of color spots, seeing color separately from the object was his discovery.

Picasso manipulated the rhythms and the so-called vibrational moment of the painting itself. He discovered that each piece of the painting, if correctly positioned in relation to the others, forms an incredibly powerful vibratory attacking energy wave that acts at a distance of perhaps fifty meters.

Olga Sviblova. You want to say that the 20th century gave rise to a visual system that no longer depicts anything. It depicts neither the sacred ideas that once stood behind it, at its origins, nor the reality that was then sacralized. If we take European painting, for example, the Renaissance, we can talk about the emergence of interest in a person. Artists begin to “unstick” from the systems of religious plots, but at the same time, for them reality, the invasion of reality, the emergence of a direct perspective also becomes some kind of metaphysical idea, because reality acquires value as such. And you want to say that it is with Picasso, Matisse that the liberation of the pictorial from everything that she depicted begins, that she becomes a value in itself and a visual weapon?

Ilya Kabakov. "The man who flew into space from his apartment." Fragment of the installation. 1985

Ilya Kabakov. Yes. Like in a rocket. Separation of one of the stages of the rocket, which flies, somersaulting in the air, in space, along its trajectory. The same separation from culture, from overall dynamics development of culture occurs with fine arts at the beginning of the 20th century. There is an autonomization of artistic production from the obligation to be present in the general cultural process.

Olga Sviblova. I still want to understand. The Bolshevik coup destroyed all the previous forms of existence of art, and the artist somehow had to unite with the authorities: either at the call of the heart (I think at some point it was very sincere), or at least because it was the only customer and it was necessary to understand what this single customer wants. And this single customer wanted the destruction of the old world.

Ilya Kabakov. Correctly.

Olga Sviblova. But they said: "We serve." No one has ever declared before the Russian avant-garde that artists are servants. Let's take, for example, a photomontage where Lissitzky also had brilliant achievements... Klutsis, Rodchenko fought - and Lissitzky was also included in this battle: who serves the new government more?

Ilya Kabakov. It's not about power. This is a separate topic, full of tragedy: the transition from the concept of "freedom" to service, to the fulfillment of orders from the authorities. The fact is that the entire avant-garde - both European and Russian as well - is the apotheosis of freedom. Artistic production must be freed, and the person who creates this production is free. This struggle for freedom is a very important moment in the struggle against the cultural phenomena of the past.

What do I want to say? I am convinced that in classical art (why it hangs in museums and why it will live a very long time after our existence) there are three very important components. The first is sublime, vertical, spirituality, whatever you call it, which is present in a work of art. The second is the aesthetic side. Very high quality, balance, complexity of building the most aesthetic product. And the third mandatory component is the presence human principle, to the person. The conversion and meaning of man is already in the very idea of ​​creation. artwork. The implication of another person. This is done for another, not for oneself. This is for the other and for the other. These three components are very important in the classical sense and fully fit into the history of culture, which should also have these three components.

The avant-garde revolution is associated with the loss of both the first and the third. All this art is not sublime. It completely ignores the service of the vertical, higher meanings, although, of course, there are both subconsciousness and archetypalness there, but all this has nothing to do with the “sublime” area. Of course, one can cite Kandinsky with his spiritual art as an example, but this is a separate issue. As a rule, the avant-garde revolution is connected with the loss of interest precisely in the “sublime”. And with the loss of interest in the person as such.

Emilia Kabakova. I want to add a few words to the question of how the artists declared themselves to be servants. The point is that all previous art systems were part of such a thing as a "service", and this was understood as such. They were already in the "services" system. It didn't need to be announced. They were born with it, they worked in a cultural environment that served another environment. So it was in music, in the theater. They knew their place in society. The emerging new artists had to and were able to declare themselves free. Here, for the first time, there was a choice. And their choice was to become servants, but not servants of a certain elite, but servants of a free society. They seemed to be both rulers and servants at the same time.

It was a voluntary choice to serve. Not that they were given to serve the rulers, but they chose voluntary service. This is a big difference. Hence the whole psychology: the illusion that they rule, but at the same time are servants by choice.

Olga Sviblova. And how did you conduct a dialogue with Lissitzky, understanding the complex and contradictory nature of his work?

Ilya Kabakov. Very simple. We made this exhibition literally according to the opposition system. Lissitzky said one thing, and we said another. According to the general concept, this resembles the position of a father and a child. The dad who built the barn, and the child who is buried under the rubble, under the rubbish that this poorly built barn has become. This whole exhibition is built: dad wanted - and that's what happened, dad dreamed - and that's the price of these dreams.

Reminds me of Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman. There, too, there are "dad" - Peter I and "child" - Eugene, who died because of the place that "dad" chose the wrong place to build a house. We took the position of Eugene, who suffers and says: “What have you done here? It would be possible to build on a dry place. Lissitzky replaces Peter at our exhibition, who said: "I will build a city, I will threaten someone." This pathos of disgust, which is present in our works, and the pathos of creation, which Lissitzky has, set the main tone for this exhibition. First: "It should work." Answer: “Nothing happened to you, daddy.”

Indeed, we represent two epochs of the Soviet era, of Soviet power. This is the bridge on which they first went up, and the same bridge at the end of Soviet power, on which everything rolled down and which, due to bad calculations, collapsed.

Emilia Kabakova. We are sitting on the rubble.

Ilya Kabakov. Like children on the rubble of a poorly constructed building. Here is the main concept of this exhibition. The look of a man on whom this huge building fell. Tower of Tatlin.

Ilya Kabakov. It turns out that we were promised space ...

Olga Sviblova. ... and put in a stuffy bedbug.

Ilya Kabakov. You can give such an answer. Dreaming, creating a utopia, drawing on paper, drawing as a short prospectus (let's build the future, create a new person) - these are best left in the form of a project, in the form of papers, in the form of a wooden, nailed Tatlin Towers project. It is best to leave all these projects in such a preliminary form, but by no means implement them.

Why? They stay safe. The fact that they are realized in life becomes the most terrible crime that can be.

Socialism is beautiful, but it must remain in the project. Many people ask what is the point of the Soviet revolution if it ended in a garbage heap. Here is its meaning. Utopia should not be realized in reality.

Ilya Kabakov. Now I would like to say (perhaps even in conclusion) what conclusion can be drawn from this exhibition or even from this conversation. As long as humanity lives, each of us produces a utopia. The creation of projects is inherent in man, like the release of secretions. As long as we are human, we fantasize. We make plans, programs, we compose something. But when these projects are carried out in life, especially by people in power, they all end in disaster, blood, destruction or chaos.

It turns out a terrible arc: projects are inevitably made, but just as inevitably they end in collapse and chaos. The question arises: where to put this projective and productive component?

The answer is: take it away, canalize it into special "utopian receivers". Perhaps it is necessary to build a Museum of Utopias or such museums in the plural.

Ilya Kabakov. The artist hopes to be listened to. This is the deepest delusion. The viewer looks through the artist. Something that does not belong to this artist should sound through this artist.

Ilya Kabakov. "Trash box" 1981

Ilya Kabakov.

The whole world, everything that surrounds me here, seems to me a boundless, endless landfill, an inexhaustibly diverse sea of ​​​​garbage. In these remnants of a huge city one can feel the powerful breath of all its past. This whole dump is full of flashes, stellar twinkling, reflections and fragments of culture: either some books, or a sea of ​​​​some magazines with photographs and texts, or things used by some people ... The great past rises behind these boxes, bubbles, bags, they seem to cry out about their past life, they keep it... This feeling of a past life gives rise to an image... it is difficult to determine what kind of image it is... Maybe the image of certain civilizations that, under the pressure of unknown cataclysms, are slowly sinking to the bottom, but they are still some events. The feeling of a huge, cosmic being embraces a person in these dumps; by no means a feeling of abandonment, disastrous life, but, on the contrary, of its return, circulation, because as long as memory exists, everything involved in life will live.
But still, why does the landfill and its image so attract my imagination again and again, why do I always return to them? ...Sometimes you think - in other countries there are no these huge dumps, no garbage, but there is only one "clean product"? Once I went to visit relatives in Czechoslovakia, and I remember that the cleanliness there made the biggest impression on me. Why, how is it so clean there?.. It feels like they are constantly cleaning, cleaning, taking out the trash - where do they get the time! - and everything is somewhere else, and not nearby - they take everything out, take it out “there”, “far away”. Then it dawned on me: how are they going to throw it away when there is an equally clean house next to it, and close to it is also clean, and behind it is the same ... But in our country, garbage is thrown right there near the house, only it is brought over the threshold , and there is already no man's land, backyards, and all the neighbors sweep it away, throw it away - there's so much no man's land! And this no-man's land that has become a dump behind our house - doesn't it stand menacingly behind our walls every day, like an enemy around the fortress, again and again returning to our house, flooding it?

And what if it’s even worse - it’s even scary to think: our entire vast territory is a garbage dump from the rest of the world?

On behalf of the main conceptual tandem in Russian and world art, Emilia Kabakova spoke about retrospectives at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and Tate Modern in London. The last one will be shown in the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery in 2018

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov Collection

What will be the exhibition at the Tate Modern? What will it be in terms of volume? On what basis were the works selected?

BIOGRAPHY

Emilia Kabakova (née Lekah)

Date and place of birth

1945 , USSR, Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnipro, Ukraine)

Education

1952-1958 studied at a music school in Moscow

1962-1966 studied at music schools in Irkutsk and Dnepropetrovsk

1973 graduated from the faculty foreign languages Moscow State University

Life and career

1973 emigrated to Israel

1974-1975 lived in Belgium

Since 1975 lives in the United States, where she first worked as a specialist in the works of Faberge, was an adviser to a private collector and a curator of art exhibitions

From 1988 to 2017 Ilya and Emilia Kabakov made 203 installations, including Monument to the City of Bordeaux (France, 2009), Monument to Emigrants from Europe to America (Germany, 2010), Arch of Life (Japan, 2015), and 28 public projects: eight in Germany, five in Italy, three in Japan, two in the Netherlands and one each in the US, Norway and South Korea

Major solo exhibitions

MoMA (New York, 1991), Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, 1991), Documenta (Kassel, 1989, 1992), Ludwig Museum (Cologne, 1992, 2002), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 1993, 1995), Venice Biennale (1988, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2007), Center Pompidou (Paris, 1995), Mori Museum (Tokyo, 2003, 2004), MAXXI (Rome, 2004), State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow, 2003-2004) , 2004-2005), State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, 1994, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2013), Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin (Moscow, 2008), Museum contemporary art Garage (Moscow, 2008), Multimedia Art Museum (Moscow, 2013), Monumenta at the Grand Palais (Paris, 2014), Chinese Biennale (Beijing, 2017) and many others

The installations are in the collections of the Hermitage (St. Petersburg), the Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), MoMA (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Caixa Forum (Barcelona), Center Pompidou (Paris) , Tate Modern (London), in the museums of Australia, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Japan and other countries

Awards and titles

Knight and Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1995, 2014). Winner of the Kaiserring art award (Goslar, Germany, 1998). Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Bern (Switzerland, 2000). Winner of the Oscar Kokoschka Prize (Vienna, 2002). Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Sorbonne University (Paris, 2007). Laureate of the Imperial Prize in the nomination "Sculpture" (Japan, 2008). Cavalier of the Order of Friendship of Peoples (Russia, 2008). Honorary Academician Russian Academy Arts (Russia, 2008). Winner of the "Best American Artists" award (Washington, USA, 2010). Laureate of the Innovation Prize (Russia, 2011). Winner of many other awards and prizes

The exhibition at the Tate Modern is truly our most authentic retrospective, despite the fact that even it will not be as complete as possible. Contrary to the many exhibitions we have done that have the word “retrospective” in their titles, they were not actually retrospectives. They were simply expositions built according to a certain plan, around a certain concept, that is, they were total installations.

Which works in the exhibition will be the earliest, which will be the latest?

For the exhibition at Tate Modern, the works were selected specifically for retrospective display: paintings, drawings, installations, models, starting with the very first conceptual painting “Football Player”, which Ilya made in 1964 and which we considered missing. But suddenly she came out again, and we managed to redeem her. And then there are the paintings of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and, at the very end, the 1990s, up to the works of today. The Tate project covers the period from the late 1950s to latest works 2017.

Which of your exhibitions do you remember as the most important?

Now it is difficult to say which exhibitions were (or remembered) the most important, but, of course, first of all I would like to mention the exhibition at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in 1988, then Documenta in Kassel in 1992, the Venice Biennale in 1993, the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum with the Grand Archive installation, and the Pompidou Center, where we built almost whole city- "We live here" (1995). Also important were the projects at MoMA (“The Bridge”, 1991) and at the Grand Palais in Paris, where we built a real city within the framework of Monumenta (“Strange City”, 2014).

I do not mention the exhibitions in Russia now (the first was the exhibition "" Incident in the Museum "and other installations" in the Hermitage in 2004, organized with the assistance of the Stella Art Foundation. — TANR). For us, on the one hand, it was an incredibly strong impression of the “return”, and on the other hand, we experienced a strange feeling there that few people, except for people very close to us in spirit and worldview, understood the content of these exhibitions. Especially the exhibition at the Garage (Alternative Art History in 2008. — TANR), which was both a total installation and a pure concept, but was perceived by many as a retrospective. Although we may be wrong.

You said that you will also have an exhibition in the fall at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. What will go in there?

This exhibition is like a nostalgic walk into the past. The fact is that in 1991 it was in this museum that our first real museum exhibition in America opened, a personal one, not a group one.

The installation “Ten Characters” was exhibited at that time, and I remember my conversation with the security guard of this museum about what “communal apartments” are, and about the passions raging in a tiny space in which people, forcibly placed in the conditions of coexistence, are forced to side by side throughout his life. About love and hate, about quarrels and mutual support, about a strange phenomenon of collective human symbiosis. After the opening of the exhibition for visitors, the curator, Ilya and I were walking through the halls and suddenly heard and saw our security guard, with great enthusiasm telling a group of visitors about the artist's intention. Of course, we were delighted with this, in contrast to the curator, who said: “We don’t pay him for this, but for him to guard the exhibition space.”

In September we will show models of our realized and unrealized projects. When we bought a house in America and built several buildings here, the idea came up to create a “museum of unrealized projects”. Now, 20 years later, many of them have already become reality, but a huge number of them, most likely, will remain in the status of "unrealized".

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. "Liya Mironovna Kovaleva: "Whose ladle is this?" 1989. Canvas, oil, metal

Does the preparation of exhibitions in America, Europe and Russia differ?

Pretty strange question. Institutions differ, their composition, curators and groups of people in these museums where we have worked or are working.

By the way, the best easy job, due to two circumstances, took place in the Moscow Garage. Dasha Zhukova instantly reacted to any complaint (and there was something to complain about: after the reconstruction, there were no doors in the Melnikovsky garage, the roof was leaking, and so on and so forth). And of course, the work of Alexander Starovoitov, who supervised the entire construction, was fantastic ( total installation"Alternative Art History". — TANR), with which we will do a retrospective next year at the Tretyakov Gallery (it will move there from the Tate Modern, but will be expanded).

And the second exhibition was just as easy at the Grand Palais at the Parisian Monumenta, although we worked there 24 hours a day, 18 days a week. 100 people worked with us. Our curator was Jean-Hubert Martin, one of the best curators in the world.

Everything was also very well done at the exhibition at the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum of Olga Sviblova (“Utopia and Reality? El Lissitzky, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov” in 2013. — TANR). Everything was carried out clearly, on time, without any problems. Two Olgas organized everything perfectly there: firstly, Olga Sviblova herself, and secondly, Olga Nestertseva, Sviblova's right hand.

So we can say that we are very lucky with the preparation of projects. And the most difficult, for various reasons, were the exhibitions at the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. “Looking up. Reading the words" . 1997. Installation drawing in Münster

What exhibitions do you have planned for the near future and what are you going to show there?

All exhibitions are planned up to 2022. But so far these are only plans: reality does not always make it possible to fulfill them, now because of age and health reasons.

For example, a retrospective is planned for 2018-2019 at Dallas Contemporary in Dallas, USA - with a huge space where you can make a fantastically good and interesting exhibition.

Samuel Dorsky Art Museum in New Paltz (New York, USA. — TANR) is open at the university, so we will work there together with students.

An exhibition is planned for April 2018 in Rostock, then there will be exhibitions in Berlin and Munich.

The installation "Ship of Tolerance" is currently being shown in Rome. We did it together with the Vatican (and personally with the Pope) and the Italian Ministry of Education. Also, this project is being prepared for showing in London, Oslo, Rostock, Washington and Palermo. It was best done in Zug, Switzerland, where 4,000 children and their parents, ordinary residents of the city and patients from nursing homes, as well as refugees from the most different countries. The museum and the mayor's offices of the three cities carried out the program of the project in a way that has never been done before. Now they are helping to implement this program in other cities in Switzerland.

Are there any exhibition or art projects planned in Russia in the near future?

First, in February 2018, a retrospective from London's Tate Modern will move to the State Hermitage Museum, then, in September next year, it will be shown at the New Tretyakov Gallery on Krymsky Val.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. "List of what I had to do before March 1961." 1989. Four items (fabric), oil and enamel on hardboard

Where do you work best?

It is best to work at home (if you are asking specifically about creative work) - where Ilya paints and where we develop plans for all projects and exhibitions.

How often do you use a computer and how?

Ilya does not use not only a computer, but even a telephone. I use my computer mainly for communication: mail, Skype, news, and I also print articles in Russian for Ilya if I find something interesting on the Internet.

Computer and the Internet affect the development of art?

This should be asked of those contemporary artists who use the computer to create works of art. We cannot answer this question.

How does the current Russian art look in an international context?

Since we do not live in Russia, we cannot judge contemporary Russian art. As everywhere and as always, in Russia there are very interesting artists and there are simply bad ones.

Now there is a lot of talk about the crisis of art. Is there any way out of it or will this situation last forever?

Hasn't anyone ever talked about the crisis of art? Look into old art history magazines, articles by old artists, critics and art critics.

What stage do you think modern art is going through?

The next stage, which follows immediately after the previous one. Now we can talk about the triumph of money, the market and other tragic circumstances. modern world in general and art in particular. However, quite recently I read a book about how the artists of the Renaissance sent invoices to customers for the work performed and how they evaluated them ... So I'd better not comment on the current situation.

Ilya Kabakov. "Football player". 1964. Oil on canvas

How important is participation in various biennials to you?

Of course, at one time it was very interesting when the general situation and atmosphere at international projects were completely different. There then existed a commonwealth of artists in which everyone wanted to become the best, but at the same time a sense of camaraderie flourished. The cultural and historical significance of these huge exhibitions was extremely important. And we were lucky that at that time the Venice Biennale and Documenta were large thematic projects organized by extremely talented curators such as Harald Szeemann, Germano Celant, Jean-Hubert Martin, Robert Storr and many others.

Today, there are too many biennales in the world, and, frankly, we simply cannot participate in them. No forces. Right now we are participating in the First Triennial of Armenia and the Biennale in Vladivostok. But we can no longer go there.

Is conceptualism alive? Does the current political situation in Russia help or hinder him?

Of course he's alive. The system itself is an incredible concept. As for conceptualism as an artistic phenomenon, then you need to ask those who live in Russia: Andrei Monastyrsky, Elena Elagina, Igor Makarevich and other active artists.

Have personal and creative ties been preserved within the circle of founding fathers of Russian conceptualism and their followers?

Some connections remained, some disappeared. It already depends on specific people and the relationship between them, all sorts of life situations. It is very difficult to explain all this, but, in principle, we can say that people who are close to us in thinking have been and remain our friends. The rest were simply taken away by life.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. "Bridge". 1991. Installation drawing

Do you follow modern Russian literature? Is there something here that interests you? Akunin, Pelevin, Ulitskaya, Sorokin?

I rarely read Russian books. Only poetry, and only classical. Ilya reads only in Russian, but these are mostly art books. Or it is poetry, classical literature, articles that I find for him, memoirs, biographies, texts by Vladimir Sorokin and Boris Groys, Mikhail Epstein.

What critical texts, besides Groys, and interpretations of your work are closest to you?

First of all, it is, of course, Robert Storr and Matthew Jesse Jackson. And besides them, there are a lot of Western art historians who write about Russian artists, including our work. Often these are very interesting and professional interpretations.

Does the impact of opera scenery differ from how total installations work, described in the series of lectures “On Total Installation”?

We have never worked in a theater on a production of operas. We were just making an installation that was used for staging an opera inside this installation. The only difference here is that in the theater the viewer sits outside and the actor is inside the total installation, while in the museum the viewer is also the actor. Since he is inside and, moving through the installation, he actually "plays" the role intended for him by the artist.

We were lucky to work several times with Gerard Mortier, the famous impresario, director of the music festival in Salzburg, in Bochum, who at the end of his life became the chief conductor and artistic director of the Royal Theater in Madrid. This man, as it were, was the modern reincarnation of Sergei Diaghilev.

You talked about the fear that accompanies life in a communal apartment. Has this fear lessened over time? Are you still scared?

I have never lived in a communal apartment, and in general I have no feeling of fear, and never have.

Are there criteria for the success and "correctness" of artistic creativity, in addition to money?

Financial success has never been a measure of success for us. Ilya never made works (paintings, drawings and installations) “for sale”. It is for this reason that we do not have many collectors. Our works are designed mainly for museum spaces, for museum viewers, art historians, but not for any particular collector. The addressee of our work has always been the history of art, the history of culture.

Should an artist be hungry or full?

Sorry, but this is not a very smart question. An artist must first of all be an artist, and then fate will decide how.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. "Two Memories of Fear". 1990. Drawing of an installation in Berlin

Should art be elitist or accessible?

Art must raise the masses to its level, but never sink to the level of the masses.

Does art help in life? How does the experience gained during work translate into the benefits of your private life?

Art is our whole life, so it is impossible for us to answer this question. We have practically no privacy.

Is it correct to say that the main result of the activity contemporary artist is he himself or the myth about him?

The main result of the artist's activity is his work, all his creativity. Apparently, you and I think differently, because such a question would not even occur to me.

Do you follow what is happening in other art forms?

It is impossible to live in the world of art and at the same time not follow what is happening around. The world is changing very quickly, and new, young artists, writers, directors are constantly coming. For us, they are extremely interesting.

Do you go to the opera, do you watch TV?

We go to the opera, to the ballet and to concerts anytime, anywhere. True, now, due to the fact that Ilya is not feeling very well, all this is limited. But, since our grandchildren are professional musicians, we go to their concerts, and sometimes they come to visit and arrange concerts at our house.

FROM drama theater the situation looks more problematic because of the subtleties of English language, but sometimes - however, extremely rarely - we go to such performances.

When we are in Moscow or St. Petersburg, we almost always go to the theater. In September, I was only one day in Moscow, but went to the Bolshoi. When we came with Ilya, we always went to the theater to Pyotr Fomenko.

Do you read books or go to the movies? Is Hollywood generally good or bad?

We read books, go to the cinema, watch movies. Hollywood is a "dream factory", and, like any dreams, any fantasy, they are embodied either well or in no way, simply mediocre. We try to watch only what has already been checked by others. Just watched Leviathan. Just a great movie! For a very long time we moved away from the impression of total hopelessness.

What composers do you listen to?

Ilya works to the music of Chopin, Mozart, Prokofiev, Bach and so on. Often includes romances, but only in good performance. But mostly he works only with classical music. We have a huge collection of records. Often, when Ilya draws, he sings himself. In addition, there is no telephone in the studio, so no one and nothing distracts from work.

Hirshhorn Museum, Washington
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. "Utopian projects"
September 7, 2017 - March 4, 2018

Tate Modern, London
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. “Not everyone will be taken into the future”
October 10, 2017 - January 28, 2018