Tuesday 26 December 2017

Not everyone will be taken into the future, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov



Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into the Future,





at Tate Modern.

This exhibition was delightful and great fun. Unfortunately, my photographs do not do it justice - some of the galleries were dark, and the existing light not conducive to photographs.

The Kabakovs are widely known as pioneers of installation art. They began their artistic partnership in the late 1980s and have produced a prolific output of immersive installations and other conceptual works addressing ideas of utopia, dreams and fear, to reflect on the universal human condition. Furthermore, their work tells the dark history of Russia since the 1917 revolution.

Artists in the Soviet Union were obliged to follow the officially approved style, Socialist Realism. Wanting to retain his independence, Ilya supported himself as a children's book illustrator from 1955 to 1987, while continuing to make his own paintings and drawings.  His early works explore the possibility of drawing and painting as conceptual media. Having chosen not to be a state-approved fine artist, he worked clandestinely. Sourcing materials was a challenge and many of his early paintings are rendered on plywood, or Masonite, a type of hardboard. The use of these cheap materials emphasises ideas rather than craftsmanship, and sets Ilya's art firmly apart from the official Soviet artists.

Emilia Lekach trained as a classical pianist in Irkutsk and studied Spanish language and literature in Moscow before emigrating to the USA in 1973. In 1988 she met Ilya in New York and this is when they began their artistic partnership. They were married in 1992.





Ilya Kabakov, Head with a Balloon, 1965.







Ilya Kabakov, Hand and Ruisdael's Reproduction, 1965

This puzzling combination of visual elements encourages the viewer to consider different ways of looking, whether rooted in Dutch landscape painting, abstraction or surrealist assemblage. It includes a visual pun, as 'to attach one's hand' is a colloquial Russian expression meaning to add one's signature. The composition can also be seen as a window looking onto a real world, represented by the Ruysdael landscape, with the viewer's arm leaning on the windowsill.




Ilya Kabakov, Soccer Player, 1964


Soccer Player is Ilya's first conceptual painting. Within the outline of a striding figure is the partial view of a rural landscape scene. Alongside it, distorted Cyrillic lettering spells out 'Uglich' - an ancient town in the West of Russia that forms part of the 'golden ring' of historic cities surrounding Moscow. This apparently innocuous image may represent something more sinister, as Uglich was also the location of a number of Gulag prison camps.





Ilya Kabakov, Holiday


The Holiday series is presented as the work of a fictional Socialist Realist artist. According to this story, the original commission for the painting was cancelled and they were put into storage. The fictional artist rediscovered them and decided to reinvigorate them by adding sweet wrappers - an upgrade that fails to improve upon the prosaic images beneath. The work comments on how the criteria of what makes for 'good' art is politically charged and subject to change, but also draws attention to the fate of artists who fall out of institutional favour.





Ilya Kabakov, Holiday

Socialist Realism is ironically questioned in Ilya's paintings. 'We wanted to analyse the language of Soviet civilisation, the banal everyday language of the system. We felt like observers in our own country, like ethnologists... but were also part of that life'.



 

Ilya Kabakov, The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment, 1985

This is Ilya's first whole room, or 'total'  installation. We were able to peep through the broken door in the photograph, into a tiny apartment.




A carefully choreographed staging of objects, lighting and text. It presents a fictional narrative that takes place in the confines of a communal apartment - a form of domestic residence that emerged during the Soviet Union to deal with the shortage of housing in urban areas. Multiple households were forced to share the same cooking and washing facilities in often cramped conditions. For Ilya, the Soviet Communal apartment is emblematic of the way in which the individual is exhibited and exposed to the gaze of others. The title character of the installation finds a way to escape from this oppressive, everyday reality by launching himself into space by catapult.

The next two installations also take place in the confines of a communal apartment.




When Olga Nicolaevna came to the kitchen in the morning she saw in the corridor numerous pots, pans, and plates, which were flying in the air. 





When Olga Yakovlevna went out to get water in the morning, she saw a lot of pots, flying pans and mugs freely fluttering about like birds in the still dark space of the communal corridor, and a few little white people were standing quietly on the brand new flying pot which belong to Igor Subordin from the corner room.







Trousers in the Corner, 1989






I Catch the Little White Men, 1990

The sculptural installations Trousers in the Corner and I Catch the Little White Men both feature minuscule paper cut-out figures. According to Ilya 'these little white men' are inhabitants of a parallel world who can occasionally be glimpsed by human eyes. The tiny figures are just one example of the subversions of perspective and scale that appear throughout the Kabakov's work, perhaps reflecting the ways in which individuals are elevated and forgotten in historical records.






looking closer






model for Where is Our Place? 2002/2017

Where is Our Place? imagines two exhibitions occurring simultaneously within a single art gallery. Old master oil paintings in thick gilt frames can only be partially seen as they ascend into the ceiling. Meanwhile, a display of contemporary works is shown at eye level. There are also two types of viewers - giants and subterranean beings, whose world is just about visible through windows in the floorboards at the edges of the gallery. This reflection on old and new art is also a play on perspective, emphasising that everything appears relative to one's position in the world.

This installation also draws upon the idea of the museum as a site of cultural authority, shaping our understanding of history, art, and society as a whole.






model for The Vertical Opera, 1998/2008

This is the proposed setting for an ambitious opera on the history of Soviet Russia. The Kabakov's concept utilises the vertical space of the structure, which the audience observes from the balconies. Enclosed within architect Frank Lloyd Wright's modernist vision, each level of the rotunda stands for a different chapter in this musical opera: Ante-Revolution, Revolution, Soviet Times, Perestroika and Post-Perestroika.




detail




detail








Three Nights, 1989

The limits of perception are explored in Three Nights. The three large paintings all relate to the theme of night, whether it be a starry sky or a nocturnal insect. However, they are placed behind a large screen, allowing only a partial view of each work. We had to look through monoculars which are directed at small apertures through which magnified images of little white men can be seen.





 Not Everyone Will Be Taken into the Future, 2001

This was the title of a 1983 essay about Kazimir Malevich which Ilya wrote in 1983. He imagines Malevich as a charismatic visionary, leading his people upwards into the future. He then remembers his art school where the most deserving pupils were selected to go to the Young Pioneer camp, while the rest were left behind. Ilya reflects that some artists will go forward and become part of the history of art, but many others will be forgotten.

In this installation of an eerie underground station,  produced by Ilya and Emilia, a train is already leaving the platform, carrying all of those selected to be part of the future. Discarded canvases bring to mind all of the artists abandoned to obscurity, whether they have fallen out of favour with a political regime or simply become unfashionable. As the art world is so focused on keeping up with the present moment, the Kabakovs ask: 'What will happen to these works tomorrow?'




Under the Snow, 2004

Fragmentary images of parades and heroic soldiers are visible among swathes of white suggesting a historical past buried beneath the blank surface of the present day.




A dark entrance leads to an endless corridor in the form of a maze





Labyrinth (My Mother's Album), 1990

one of Ilya's few directly autobiographical installations. Resembling the décor of a communal apartment building, the walls are lined with





photographs taken by Ilya's uncle, and a memoir by his mother. The text recounts her struggle to survive and bring p a son during the Soviet era. 




The corridors curve in a double spiral, fist leading into the centre, then winding out again.




As we approached the centre, an audio recording of Ilya himself could be heard, singing romantic songs half-remembered from his childhood.




'When I think about that world in which my mother's life passed, what arises in my imagination is a long and semi-dark corridor which is twisted like a labyrinth, where behind each new turn, behind each bend, there is not a bright exit glimmering in the distance, but just the same grubby floor, the same grey, dusty, poorly painted walls illuminated by weak, 40-watt light bulbs'.





Model for Inscriptions on the Wall (Reichstag), 1998/2000

In 1945 Soviet soldiers seized the Reichstag, the former German parliament building. They covered the walls with Cyrillic markings, writing their names, their hometowns, expressions of their hopes and feelings, and their hatred for fascism. More than 50 years later, several artists were invited to propose an artistic intervention in the Reichstag. The Kabakov's unrealised plan was to frame and light some of the surviving inscriptions to memorialise those minor players in the historical narrative and bring into view markings that would otherwise remain invisible.





Man Climbing Over the Wall.
Model for a sculpture (The Eternal Emigrant), 1995/2004




Model for How to Meet an Angel, 1998/2002





detail

...

In this last room of the exhibition, the theme of flight appears associated with the possibility of escape - whether from the oppression of the Soviet Union, or more generally from the harsh reality of life. Flight takes the form of an angel, a stateless being that is free from earthly and bureaucratic constraints.




How Can one Change Oneself? 1998




Model for The Three Angels, 2012





detail




How to Meet an Angel, #2, 1997, 2014




The Angel Over the City, 1998





Model for The Five Steps of Life, 2000.2012








looking closer




Sunday 24 December 2017

Merry Christmas



Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you have a wonderful, stress-free time!




Wednesday 20 December 2017

Red star over Russia



Red Star over Russia





at Tate Modern.




To commemorate the centenary of the October Revolution, this exhibition explores the visual culture that emerged in its wake, one that both documented and influenced the radically new way of life that followed. The visual impact of this exhibition is astonishing, documenting five decades of Soviet hopes ending in devastation, terror and despair. The images have been selected from almost a quarter of a million graphic images collected by artist and designer David King.

Visual culture kept pace with the vast economic, political, social and cultural changes that the Revolution brought about. Many avant-garde artists believed art and architecture were tools for social change capable of creating a new environment for the new citizens. Art became accessible to millions through prints, posters, journals and photobooks. The resulting imagery appeared across the breath of the Soviet Union and came to dominated everyday life.


Art onto the streets:

The message that the revolution was putting power into the hands of the working class was spread around the country through mass media: posters, newspapers, prints, photographs and the new medium of film. Multilingual posters and proclamations were pasted up on the streets and in railway stations, factories and workers' clubs. Political speeches and demonstrations became spectacular events. Agitprop trains, equipped with cinemas, exhibition carriages, mobile theatres and classrooms, brought the message of the new regime to remote regions. At the same time the government commissioned new monuments that transformed public spaces with memorials and statues celebrating the empowerment of the working class.














Women! Take Part in the Elections to the Soviets








El Lizzisky, Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge, 1919

The overlap between propaganda and the avant garde is at its most famous in Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge: a red triangle driving into a white disc against a burning background, urging the Bolsheviks to beat the White Russians - Suprematism in the service of communism.




The mass-produced image - in photographs, posters, journals and books - became the focus of the new artistic culture. Unlike the precious, unique paintings and sculptures owned by the ruling class before the Revolution, these formats were widely available.  Avant-garde artists led this transformation. They employed simplified forms and pure colours to forge what they believed would be a truly popular art form. Photography and photomontage - collages from photographs - played a crucial role in maintaining a human presence within the structure of abstraction. These were produced in hundreds of thousands of copies.










Valentina Kulagina, Soviet Union Art Exhibition, Zurich, 1931





El Lissitzky, Sportsmen





El Lissitzky, Troublemaker





El Lissitzky, Old Man, (Head Two Steps Behind)





El Lissitzky, Gravediggers




El Lissitzky, New Man




Alexandr Rodchenko, House on Miasnitskaya St





Alexandr Rodchenko, Small Yard





Alexandr Rodchenko, Girl with Leica





Alexandr Rodchenko, Make Way for the Women






Boris Kustodievv, 1905, published in Bugbear Magazine.

Responding to the violent unrest of 1905 and pogroms and executions that followed, Kustodiev depicted Death rampaging through Moscow.




Blue Blouse political theatre group.

Hundreds of professional and amateur factory theatre groups emerged from 1921 onwards. Their experimental  'live newspaper'  theatre dramatized current political events and social issues through unscripted performances. They were known as 'Blue Blouse' groups after the factory uniforms of blue overalls. This format spread across Europe and the USA.




Ksenia Boguslavskaya, design for the decoration of Uritskii Square in Petrograd on the first anniversary of the October Revolution.





Alexandr Deineka, A Puzzle for the Old Man.

This shows God struggling to accept the new emancipated woman who had equality in the workplace.


Trotsky vanishes:

Leon Trotsky took a leading role in the October Revolution. Following Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924 there was a power struggle which led to Trotsky's exile in 1927. Under the new leadership of Joseph Stalin, the memory of Lenin's closest ally was systematically erased, and images recording his role in revolutionary events were defaced.


We had the opportunity to watch rare archival footage. The first two sections of the film portray Trotsky as a powerful political figure, whilst the final part demonstrates that by 1927 Trotsky had completely disappeared from public affairs.














The International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris, 1937:

The Soviet Pavillion in the Exposition celebrated and exhibited recent achievements on the world stage.



The pavilion, designed by Boris Iofan was dominated by Vera Mukhina's Worker and Collective Farm Woman, a huge stainless steel sculpture that celebrated the solidarity of the urban and rural working class. Inside, the modernist interior design by Nikolai Suetin showcased innovations in government, science, transport and industry.





Aleksandr Deineka, Stakhanovites, 1937

This vast mural dominated one of the six halls of the pavilion. The painting fused reality with aspiration, as his depiction of a parade in Red Square includes the unrealistic Palace of the Soviet in the background. The crowd features portraits of Stakhanovite workers, who set records for productivity. Deineka was awarded a gold medal for his work in the exhibition and the pavilion was visited by some 20 million people.








Ordinary citizens:

The optimistic image projected internationally in the Paris exhibition contrasted with the sombre and brutal reality of life in the Soviet Union. The year marked the peak of Stalin's Great Terror, during which over 1.6 million people were arrested. Out of these, around 70,000 were sentenced to death and others sent to the Gulag labour camps. 

Examples of censored images reveal a massive state-instigated project to eliminate all evidence of the existence of Stalin's political enemies. Vandalised photographs attest to self-censorship, whereby ordinary Soviet citizens, fearful of repercussions, erased 'enemies of the people' from visual material in their surroundings. Sometimes this was done under orders or out of fear.




Athletes Pageant on Red Square with Dynamo sportsmen carrying Nikolai Ezhov's portrait, defaced.




Group photograph of a regional gathering of OGPU workers, with figures crossed out and 'enemy of the people' written next to one of the figures.




Group of Red Army officers, with Marshal Tukhachevsky's face crossed out

Tukhachevsky rose to fame as a brilliant military strategist in the Civil War. In 1935 he was made a Marshall of the Soviet Union and received the Order of Lenin. He was arrested on June 1937 and tried for participation in the 'Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Military Organisation'. All the accused were found guilty and executed. More than 25,000 high-ranking officers wee prosecuted by Stalin's secret police between 1937 and 1941, leaving the Soviet military vulnerable at the time of the Nazi invasion.


The war and the 'Thaw':

Following the German invasion on June 1941, Soviet propaganda immediately mobilised citizens into action. The image of Stalin could no longer be expected to inspire unquestioning loyalty and the symbolic figure of the 'Motherland' began to replace that of the Leader.

Material featuring imagery permeated all aspects of life. Viktor Koretsy reworked photographic images into hand-painted designs that were used for poster production as well as postcards, leaflets and even postage stamps. The artists who designed this material came from a generation brought up on images of patriotic resistance created during the Civil War (1917-1922), and they drew on this legacy and reinvented it. Nina Vatolina's painterly poster designs harness the imagery of the empowered woman. The practice of hand-making stencilled posters, also first used at the time of the Civil War, was revived in posters. Yevgeny Khaldei's imposing images were often manipulated to enhance their dramatic propaganda effect.

By the middle of the 20th century socialist realism dominated the visual culture of the USSR - a uniformity which was by turns powerful and overbearing. During the so-called 'Thaw' that followed Stalin's death in 1953, a generation of artists, including Ilya Kabakov, rejected and reworked official imagery in a burst of creative innovation.




Nina Vatolina, Fascism - The Most Evil Enemy of Women, Everyone to the Struggle Against Fascism, 1941



After Nina Vatolina, Fascism - The Most Evil Enemy of Women, Everyone to the Struggle Against Fascism, 1942

This version, in which the female figure has been subtly altered, was produced in 1942 as German troops approached Azerbaijan.  This repurposing reflects the multiple lives of many agitprop images.





Victor Koretsky, Our Army is an Army of Liberation of the Working People, 1939

Koretsky's posters were based on photographic images and reworked with paint. This much reproduced image presents a traditionally dressed Belarussian peasant embracing a Red Army soldier, kissing on the lips being a long-standing Slavic gesture of friendship.




Viktor Koretsky, Red Army Soldier, Save Us! 1943.




Nina Vatolina, Don't Chatter! Gossiping Borders on Treason, 1941





K. Kazymov, Don't Chatter! 1942





Nina Vatolina, I Will Vote for the Candidate's Bloc of Communists and Non-Party Members, 1946




Nina Vatolina, Every Honest Citizen - Join Us!, 1942




Viktor Koretsky, Glory to the Great Soviet People - The Builders of Communism! 1955