The Return of the Prodigal Forefather

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KABAKOV AND KABAKOV

A major retrospective in Moscow brings Ilya and Emilia Kabakov back to the city of their artistic origins. What will the new Russia make of their darkly comic visions of the Soviet past?

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A CONVERSATION WITH EMILIA KABAKOV

The artist discusses Russia's new exhibition space, its fresh crop of billionaire collectors, and the retrospective that will take them all in.

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Kabakov notoriously hates to talk to the press, and during his long-awaited Moscow return he has sometimes been downright mean. There were rumors he called one interviewer a “fucker” and abruptly stopped the interview on the grounds that the journalist “doesn’t know a thing about art.” Kabakov has effectively shunned the mainstream press, leaving the tabloids and TV to concentrate on Zhukova and Abramovich.

Still, the critical reaction to the Moscow retrospective was pretty . . . uncritical. The sheer number of events necessitated that articles devote a good deal of space to giving basic information; beyond that, most publications also gave an informed analysis of Kabakov’s biography and art, including little or no opinion. In private conversations, writers were far more vicious, with one critic calling the “Gates” installation a “failure” and the project for CCCM a “bore.” Another said: “Kabakov is a great master, but why all the pomp? He has equally great contemporaries, for example, Erik Bulatov.”

The only notable press coverage came at OpenSpace.Ru, a culture site popular with both art professionals and a wider audience. Since the beginning of September, the visual arts section has been turned into a seminar on all things Kabakov: from the cultural significance of WC in contemporary Russia to the future of Zhukova’s Garage. The explanation for this level of interest is simple: OpenSpace.Ru is owned by Art Media Group. It was at the site that one found the only proper interview Kabakov gave. Speaking to editor Ekaterina Degot, who is well known internationally as a curator and critic, the artist was quite critical of the worship of glamour and money that is all too evident in Russia in 2008. “Everything’s ready for the coming of glamour,” he quipped. “Here comes the pink pus.”

In addition to her stature in the international art world and affiliation with OpenSpace, Degot had another thing going for her in winning the exclusive interview: She had taken drawing lessons from Kabakov as a 12-year-old girl when he was still in the USSR. This fact is significant. Twenty years ago, the Moscow art world was an informal system without private galleries and proper collectors that relied heavily on interpersonal connections. Exhibitions were held mostly in apartments and studios; to visit you had to know someone who knew the artist. While a lot of that has changed, one has a feeling that Kabakov has returned not to the Russia of today, but simply to his old friends, to the Russia that he left behind 20 years ago. There’s no better example of this than curator Joseph Backstein, the driving force behind the retrospective, who has known Kabakov since the 1970s and speaks highly of him. Kabakov has shows signs of contempt for the materialism of Russia today, but more than this, the overwhelming impression of his visit has been a sense of indifference toward the country’s current condition.

This reaction may actually go in both directions. For a new audience of critics and viewers alike — those who don’t know just how much authority Kabakov commanded in the 1970s and aren’t part of his “family” — breaking the Kabakov code can be a problem, especially as the art appears much more complex than the hype suggests. Moscow Conceptualism, with which Kabakov is associated, has always been a movement based on ideas, not visual conformity. But today’s Russian collectors and art viewers tend to value beautiful subject matter more than beautiful concepts. Flashy works are omnipresent; ideas are not. The Garage has been promoted as the place to be for the city’s young and curious; but Zhukova’s opening show might have presented a nut too hard to crack. Within a few days of the Garage opening, the stream of visitors to the installations had trickled to a near halt.