Ilya Kabakov: The 1960s and 1970s: Notes on Unofficial Life in Moscow (1999) [RU, EN]
Filed under book | Tags: · 1960s, 1970s, aesthetics, art, biography, conceptual art, politics, russia, soviet union
A memoir, originally written in 1982 and 1986, by the Russian conceptual artist now living in the United States. “He belongs to the generation of underground (or nonconformist) artists that emerged with the liberalization of domestic policies in the Soviet Union in the 1960s during the Krushchev “thaw”. That generation formed a subculture in resistance to the ideological settings of “official art”, of Socialist Realism, as well as to Soviet ideology and the life style of ‘homo sovieticus’. This book is a memoir of the ‘underground years’ and offers a unique insider’s perspective on artistic life during a period of ‘prohibition’ through an exploration of the tension between totalitarian politics and resistance aesthetics.” (from a review by Volha Isakava)
60-е-70-е. записки о неофициальной жизни в Москве
Publisher Gesellschaft zur Förderung Slawistischer Studien, Vienna, 1999
Wiener Slawistischer Almanach. Sonderbände, 47
Digital edition by Otto Sagner, Munich, 2012
ISBN 9783954796380
267 pages
Conversation with Ilya and Emilia Kabakov (Anton Vidokle, e-flux, 2012, EN)
Reviews: Volha Isakava (Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2005, EN), Julianne Fürst (Kritika, 2013, EN).
Commentary: Keti Chukhrov (2010, EN).
JPGs, PDF (RU)
PDF (8 MB, RU)
Short excerpt in English translation
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