The Toilet in the Corner: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

Sprovieri is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by llya Kabakov.

 

An old double door with the finger written inscription “toilet” is situated in a corner. Behind the door somebody is singing, sometimes coughing or stopping for a pause. Referring to the attempted elimination of individuality in the communal life conditions imposed in post-Stalinist Russia, Kabakov creates an ironic and tragic theatrical mis-en-scene of the universal human condition with its frustration and doomed aspiration.

 

In his work, Kabakov constantly reverts to using flies. For their lack of identity, and their link to dirt and rubbish, they remind him of his homeland Russia as well as functioning as a metaphor for human existence. Russia, land of rubbish and flies, comes to appear a place of truly human existence, unlike those countries where the urge towards cleanliness sweeps away all unsuccessful projects and redundant memories.

 

Ilya Kabakov is the most prominent contemporary Russian artist. His work has been exhibited at such major international venues as The Museum of Modern Art in New York (1991), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1995) and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1995) as well as the most significant surveys of contemporary art as Documenta in Kassel (1992), the Venice Biennale (1993) and the Whitney Biennal in New York (1997).