Ilya and Emilia Kabakov - an overview

The Kabakovs are a great inspiration for me. In my opinion, they represent the classic measure of what Art should aim to be.

Through their works, we are invited to explore the outside world of social upheaval, politics as well as the inner world of the psyche, of the subconscious and its artefacts. These concerns are combined in haunting mixed-media painting and installations that call us to come back to them time after time.

This video also shines somes light over their exhausting physical model-based process. The sequence of rooms full of completed and unrealised works are an architect’s dark, unsettling dream.

Not everyone will be taken into the future, but the Kabakovs…

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“The Kabakovs are widely known for their large-scale installations and wide range of paintings and sculptures which draw upon the visual culture and symbolism of the former Soviet Union.

From dreary communal apartments to propaganda art and its highly optimistic depictions of Soviet life – their work addresses universal ideas of utopia and fantasy; hope and fear”. - TateShots

For this episode of TateShots they are visited in their Long Island home in New York - the suburban utopia-nightmare (in Emilia’s words) - where they have been living for over thirty years as they prepare for their first major UK museum exhibition at Tate Modern.