Kunsthaus Graz English

El Lissitzky - Ilya & Emilia Kabakov Utopia and Reality 07.02.-11.05.2014 Space01

Kunsthaus Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Lendkai 1, 8020 Graz T +43–(0)316/8017–9200, Tues–Sun 10am–5pm [email protected], www.museum-joanneum.at This text is published on the occasion of the exhibition

El Lissitzky – The exhibition in the Kunsthaus Graz Ilya & Emilia Kabakov is a version of the 2013 exhibition Utopia and Reality shown in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, specially adapted to our Kunsthaus Graz museum. Universalmuseum Joanneum 07.02.-11.05.2014

In cooperation with the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL)

Curated by Charles Esche, Ilya Kabakov and Emilia Kabakov

Co-curated by Peter Pakesch, Katrin Bucher Trantow and Willem Jan Renders

Text Supported by: Monika Holzer-Kernbichler

Translation Y‘plus, Graz

Graphic concept and design Lichtwitz – Büro für visuelle Kommunikation

Layout Michael Posch The exhibition El Lissitzky – Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Utopia and Reality compares and contrasts a representative selection from the work complexes of two of the most significant figures in Russian art of the past hundred years. Ilya and Emilia Kabakov present and narrate their view of Russia in seven chapters here as witnesses to the failure of the Communist Utopia. The Fallen Angel can no longer see the red star in the centre of space. Ilya Kabakov born 30 September 1933 in Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine)

Ilya Kabakov is considered to be the most impor- tant representative of Moscow Conceptualism, which regards the painted image, language and the real object each as elements of equal value in art. Moscow Conceptualism examined art on a basis very far from any market economy concerns (since there were none) and on this side of formulations that had been censored hundreds of times (since this was the requirement of everyday life at the time). Starting from this position the Conceptualist artists placed the Soviet mass culture of the 1960s and 1970s at the centre of their work. Ilya Kabakov studied at the Moscow Academy of Art after which he lived primarily as an illustrator of children’s books. With increasing professional rou- tine he was able to organise the work with which he earned his living and also the requirements of family life so that he had time for his own art. He lived a double life through this – on the one hand as the perfect, system conformist illustrator, and on the other as an independent and creative artist – in order to be able to develop further while living and working in a repressive political system, which had a concept of art ending before Impressionism began. He established his atelier in a Moscow attic flat, which soon became a meeting place for many critics of the system. In the eighties Kabakov was able to exhibit his work for the first time in Switzerland. His first stay in the West was in Graz in 1987, where he was invited – following Peter Pakesch’s suggestion – by the Grazer Kunstverein. He received a grant from the city of Graz and was able to arrange an exhibition by himself for the first time, which was shown at the foyer of the Opera Graz. A few months later the same work was shown at the Venice Biennale. This was followed by inten- sive international exhibition activities. Kabakov left the Soviet Union permanently. He received the DAAD grant in Berlin and was invited to participate at Documenta in 1992. Then he moved to New York, where he still lives and works with Emilia, his wife and collaborator. 20 years later he returned to Russia with first exhibitions. He has developed only little sympathies for the new Russia. The Fallen Angel Voices in the Void

The Fallen Angel triggers a chain The series On the Edge presents of possible associations in the white paintings in large formats, viewer. Why have his wings failed the edges of which are strewn him? One could refer to a number with tiny figures. What is actually of well-known stories to explain happening is pushed aside to the this: Icarus, Satan or the Angel edge, sometimes chaotically, Samael. The barrier tape is a ref- sometimes statically. These erence to a contemporary acci- paintings are among the largest dent. Who was this angel? The workgroups ever created by Kaba- question remains unanswered. kov and were produced in Moscow The fallen angel of this exhibition during the nineteen-seventies. , draws attention to the relation- At this time he secured his ship between Utopia and reality, income as an official and success- for Ilya and Emilia Kabakov two ful illustrator of children’s books . contradictory elements. Both The rest of his time he spent in experienced over many years in his attic studio where he met his the Soviet Union how the com- artist friends to talk about art. munist Utopia of an egalitarian These paintings were produced society was in reality character- without a thought of them ever ised by surveillance, repression being exhibited, let alone sold, and fear. simply and alone for their own sake and to be discussed and take their place in a discursive reality. This form of art was offi- cially undesirable, although it was not actively persecuted. Never- theless these paintings were the first of Kabakov’s works, which even before he himself was able to do so – could leave the USSR and be exhibited in Switzerland. White has a special significance for Ilya Kabakov: on the one hand it Garbage stands for an endlessly wide empty space, for nothingness, as it was In 1981 Ilya Kabakov began his seen in Suprematism, yet equally story of the Man Who Never for something transcendental, pos- Threw Anything Away. sibly even mystically religious. The In the view taken here garbage is abstract empty surfaces that are something special which he cata- framed by human events may well logues, brings into order and be a reference to collective forget- comments on. It is his own gar- fulness, but also to icon painting, bage which he manages, his own where the frame has an elevating private “Museum of Garbage”. function as the surrounding to the Simultaneously it is a mirror of sacred image, with which it is Soviet society, an archive of mem- inseparably linked. White contains ories and also a symbol of a cul- all the other colours and it is the ture characterized by its untidi- most powerful reflector of light, ness and failure to achieve which is also why it has such a completion. The museum of rub- potent luminous aura. White is bish collects those objects that humble, true and also neutral. are of no further use to their own- Museum and gallery walls became ers, where a line of decision is white when they encountered the drawn between memory and for- abstract and the images encorpo- getfulness. Everything is carefully rated the entire available space. preserved in the Museum of Gar- The white of the classic museum of bage, and clearly every single the 20th century is the serious object is of equal value and sig- background against which a sense nificance. of security develops for Ilya Kaba- kov. The museum for him is a place where time stands still, where it is frozen solid. In these terms the project at the Kunsthaus Graz is a thoroughly remarkable journey through time.

Everyday’s Victory everywhere in Russia at the time. The property question is a double “Who does this fly belong to?” is edged one and it refers to the written on the corner of a paint- common life in the “kommunalka”, ing dating from 1966. It is a note where there was no private prop- on the margin of the long con- erty. frontation between the Kabakovs Life in a communal apartment and the shek, the building admin- was considered to be the practical istration, which managed and realisation of the communist categorized every aspect of life in ideal, the implementation of a Russian apartment. It robbed which began immediately with the every citizen of every responsibil- revolutionary changes of 1917 ity, of all privacy and thus of ini- with the expropriation of the tiative of whatever kind. The Shek urban bourgeoisie. Multiple fami- series now comprises more than lies with nothing whatsoever in 100 paintings, and their structure common, people with the widest is always very similar. A press- range of interests and styles of board panel is covered in a pale life were expected to share an coloured layer of paint and a dia- apartment, and above all the logue unfolds in the top corner, it kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet is conducted in Russian written in and the connecting corridors. the Cyrillic alphabet and in a typi- “Hell – is other people”, Sartre cally bureaucratic style. “Who’s said and scored a bull’s-eye with grater is this?” a voice in the top the phrase in the memories of left-hand corner demands and the countless apartment tenants. The answer comes from the right “I kitchen was the centre of life, don’t know.” In other cases a used and dirtied by all and never name is given. But nobody ever cleaned up gladly by anyone. says: “It is mine.” The real object Everything belonged to everyone about which the question has and thus to no one at all. As a been posed is attached to the result dirt and with it the flies centre of the picture. were everywhere in the memories The colours in these pictures are of the Kabakovs. Apparently even matt blue, dirty brown or green – the shared work plans were of the same colours that were used little help here. The flies make their appearance Monument to a Tyrant ever and again in Kabakov’s work in many different forms, they The Monument to a Tyrant pre- have left their mark in his entire sents a ruler who has stepped oeuvre and have become, as it down from his high pedestal, who were, the icon of his former home- has turned his back to it and wob- land. The flies were everywhere, bles away to the edge. While El he said, in chaos, in dirt, in gar- Lissitzky presents Lenin in a pho- bage. They ruled the everyday tographic section as an active world, crept out of every crack speaker for his monument, the and corner – to watch everything Kabakovs present Stalin in his and get on everyone’s nerves. The uniform as a Marshal of the Soviet reference to the political regime is Union, a lonely figure who seems all too obvious. At the same time to have risen from the dead. It is Kabakov identified himself with also clear from the drawing that the flies: “I have felt like an ordi- people passing by chance are nary Soviet citizen since my child- fleeing in terror. Reality has long hood: I am frightened, I feel since overtaken the Utopia. small, pushed into a corner, I am like a little fly, a tiny element in a giant state.” No matter how one sees and understands the flies, or their symbolic content: Kabakov gave them a scientific treatment for an exhibition in Cologne in 1992 highlighting the significance of these insects for the possibili- ties of constructing reality. Flies frequently soil the white surface, whatever is clean, leaving their traces behind them. And this is perhaps something with an ever- lasting validity.

Escaping Life small city model. He has left the dark little room behind him – and Ilya Kabakov developed his “Total ahead of him is a new and end- Installation” in New York. In this less universe of worlds. The he created an interaction dream of the “little man from between images, texts, objects Russia” is one that has long and also sounds from fictional occupied Russians. The conquest worlds, all of which tell stories. of the cosmos was the quintes- A good installation disorientates sence of the Russian Utopia. the public and also draws them in completely. The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment... Unrealized Utopia is a story of this kind. The room is a total mess; there Ilya and Emilia Kabakov belief are sketches on the walls that that stories, dreams, illusions and are completely papered with Utopias can only survive when propaganda posters. There is a they do not become realities. . catapult in the centre of the room Realising a dream leads to its that appears to have been put destruction, gigantic social Uto- together with materials from the pias, such as the Communist one, bed, the few remaining parts of are condemned to destruction in a which are left lying around living reality. Despite this, or per- beneath it. There is a giant hole haps because of it, Utopias are so in the blanket covering it; a pair very important for the couple. The of shoes has been left on the work in this last chapter gives an floor, which is covered in rubble insight into Utopias the couple from the breach-hole that has has not realised – one of these is been made. The catapult has the House of Dreams, another is already been used. The Vertical Opera. In the latter The room tells the story of a man the possibility is intended for the who has lived his dream and has audience to remain active and to broken out into the space of the move upwards to follow the cosmos, and will never return to action that is taking place parallel Earth. The trajectory which he to the installation in the core of has calculated can be seen on a the building. Utopian spaces have changed in wished for or not. These discus- the course of the hundred years sions were intensified by the art- between El Lissitzky and the ists, however, and formed the Kabakovs, the starting point both basis of a number of (illegal) then and today is the Opera and papers which they distributed to the theatre auditorium. For Kazi- others as the basis for further mir Malevich the opera discussion. These polemics were Victory Over the Sun introduced characterized by their combination the first Suprematist forms in of text and image. The fly that has 1913 and with the Kabakovs it is already been mentioned also made the vertical opera, the perfor- an early appearance in these note- mance pieces of which link the book texts; it was a motif that had idea of the theatre with a lively also played a role in the work of installation as a means of involv- Dostoyevsky or Gogol. During the ing the audience in a fictitious nineteen seventies Kabakov began world. to work on his own albums, which were notable for their combination of words, images and blank pages. The Artist as a Reformer He wrote his own narratives. A frequent imagining expressed in Books have a central position in these albums was the desire for the work of Ilya Kabakov. He ini- “normality”; this was a real Utopia tially secured his income as an that appeared to be completely official and successful illustrator out of reach in the USSR at the of children’s books. While extend- time. As a fictitious antihero he ing beyond this censored official slipped into his book world in a work he also cultivated his unof- varied series of painful reality ficial work that started on the metaphors. “kitchen table”. The Moscow Con- ceptualists met regularly in atel- iers, but also around the “kitchen table”, the table that belonged to everyone and to no one and where a discussion was always on the agenda – whether it was The exhibition El Lissitzky – Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Utopia and Reality compares and contrasts a representative selection from the work complexes of two of the most significant figures in Russian art during the past hundred years. El Lissitzky’s work is shown in seven chapters, covering his revoluti- onary ideas for an entirely new art, his schemes for redesigning everyday life in a radically changed society, through to propaganda for Stalin such as the giant red star at the centre of the exhibition. El Lissitzky Pochinok 1890 – Moscow 1941

El Lissitzky is considered to be one of the most important representatives of the Russian avant- garde of the early 20th century. As a Jew in Cza- rist Russia he was barred from studying at the Imperial Academy of Art in 1909 and like many other Russians he left for Germany. There he studied architecture in Darmstadt. He concluded his studies in 1915 and returned to his home- land where he saw the dawn of a fresh start for mankind in the arts and in society with the October Revolution of 1917. His highly eclectic teaching activities took him to the art school of Vitebsk in 1919. It was here that he encountered Kazimir Malevich and his idea of Suprematism as an all-encompassing concept of art. El Lissitzky was filled with enthusiasm for this system which provided a basis for his own development as an artist and architect, and he soon promoted his own Suprematist position as PROUN. He main- tained an intensive exchange throughout his life with the Bauhaus in Germany, with the De Stijl in the Netherlands and also with the Swiss Dada- ists. He returned to Berlin in 1922, co-publishing the magazine ‘Gegenstand’ with Ilya Ehrenburg. He also worked with Kurt Schwitters on the periodical ‘Merz’. Two years later he married the art historian Sophie Küppers and returned to Moscow with her. Throughout this period he was constantly employed on the design of official exhibitions. He died in Moscow in 1941. The Cosmos a white background. The pictures were presented without frames in PROUN, the ‘Project for the affir- a white exhibition room, uncou- mation of the new’ is how El Lis- pling the works from any sense of sitzky termed his work, and a defined and anchored top and beginning with his intensive inter- bottom. The intention was of est in Suprematism he brought a shapes floating freely in space further development to its vocab- and suggesting motion. This was ulary of forms. Kazimir Malevich the new cosmos from which many the founder of Suprematism, had new things emerged. El Lissitzky his roots in painting which he sharpened these forms into con- sought to change completely with structs of geometrical precision a radical renewal of its formal and he created three-dimensional idiom, but also in its very nature bodies in space through the use by seeking to reduce it to a pro- of shadow, giving the pictures grammatic absolute zero. depth in addition to motion. The In the Last Futurist Exhibition colours black, red and white are 0.10 of 1915 Kazimir Malevich not as with Malevich fundamental in only presented his celebrated the work. Significant also is that Black Square for the first time, El Lissitzky regarded PROUN as a but also showed the entire Supre- ‘train-changing station’ on the matist vocabulary of forms, geo- way from painting to architecture. metric shapes in single colours on Clarity of forms sion it creates, since it does entirely without any clearly El Lissitzky was a trained archi- declared front side. It is in these tect. He was constantly engaged terms a clearly intended counter- in a lively exchange of ideas with weight to the typical capitalist colleagues in Germany and the skyscraper from the USA. He Netherlands and was, of course, designed the Wolkenbügel for thoroughly informed about all the implementation in eight versions latest international developments in the centre of Moscow, with the in architecture and the art of intention of achieving a city gates building. Clarity of the vocabulary effect on the Moscow Ring. Three of forms is the trademark of his gigantic pillars rise from a mini- own architecture, which is also mal surface area, establishing a distinctly articulated in all his link between a floating architec- other work. The Wolkenbügel is a ture and the city traffic below. spectacular design for a sky- High above the city offices extend scraper, reaching not only up to horizontally over the streets and the heights, but also and above parallel to the urban landscape all claiming the horizontal dimen- below. Clarity of forms is also a sion and making equality possible clearly recognisable concern in all in the distribution of the best the other designs and concepts El floor space. The Wolkenbügel is Lissitzky produced. also homogenous in the impres- Victory over the Everyday society and all needs into account. The distribution of roles El Lissitzky wrote in an essay on in the new Soviet society too, in residential culture in 1926: which man and woman had com- ‘Before the Revolution our urban plete equality, would also need to proletariat was unable to live in a find expression. The limited space manner worthy of human beings, available meant the new apart- but existed in the most miserable ment would have to be purpose of housing conditions.’ The Bol- engineered and elaborated in sheviks started the expropriation much the same way as the ‘best of bourgeoisie homes in 1917 and modern travelling suitcase’. Total made these available as separate organisation of living space, mak- rooms for worker families and the ing perfect use of every last cor- entire apartments were then ner in the built-in cupboards and shared by several families. The of the different heights in each of bathroom, WC and kitchen were in the rooms are all elements that communal use by everyone. The had been in consistent discussion communal apartment as a way of since the turn of the century in living had come into existence. every avant-garde architectural The severe accommodation short- current and had been much influ- age was eased and the revolu- enced by the apartment standard tionary restructuring of society in the USA. For El Lissitzky as was pushed ahead at the same also for his colleagues outside time. Ten years later the first Russia, it was important to plan specially built worker communal the new home in such a way ‘that apartment buildings began to the greater part of the fittings appear. El Lissitzky concerned and furniture would be produced himself with the question of what simultaneously with the building, a Soviet apartment type should as a single homogenous unit. The be like, when taking the funda- entire kitchen equipment, cup- mentals of the new order into boards, partition walls, fold-away account. A living space standard tables, beds – all of this can be was required, taking all levels of produced in the simplest manner as part of the interior design.’ inating in drawings by the stu- Everyday life was to be designed dent Ilya Tschaschnik. The plat- down to the smallest detail, with form was not only mobile with a Soviet requirements in focus and motor installed in the foundation achieving a significant difference pedestal, but the upper surfaces to capitalist notions in the plan- could also be used for projections. ning of the home. This platform for setting up in public spaces represented an extension of the Suprematist vocabulary of forms to an urban Memory: Monument to a Leader environment and gives clear expression to the background of When Lenin died in 1924, El Lis- political agitation that was an sitzky not only designed the aspect of this art movement. Wolkenbügel, but also a speakers During public parades the stu- platform to raise public orators dents of the art school of which high above street level and Kazimir Malevich was the head, ensure that they would be heard. also went out into public space to The intention was to glorify demonstrate the new system in Lenin’s ideas – such as the New art in a comprehensive form. Economic Policy – giving them a Suprematism was in the process structurally functional form and of putting an end to every indi- to serve the personality cult of vidual style and taste in art in the Lenin. Designing this platform view of its founder Kazimir was a task El Lissitzky set his Malevich. The aim was to create a students at the UNOWIS Art new collective style for the com- School in Vitebsk; it was intended munist future. as a plea for the industrialization policy of the USSR. The striking feature of the design is the dynamic upward trend of the structure in combination with monochrome colour surfaces orig- Transforming Life Trust in the New World

Albert Einstein published his The- Russian artists designed a new ory of Relativity in 1905, estab- Soviet world – carried along by lishing a relationship between revolutionary thrust and impetus space and time that was to have – a world that turned away from far-reaching consequences. Time the past, to a new zero point and as the fourth dimension was also to develop something entirely to become a very important com- fresh seemingly from nothing. ponent of art. Kazimir Malevich Space followed the image, inhab- brought it into his pictures by ited space, public space and ulti- attempting to represent forms in mately the entire city. “We have motion. Movement in space is set ourselves the city as our task also of central importance in El (...) this dynamic architecture is Lissitzky’s Proun room. The line of creating the new theatre of life vision is directed into the room, and because we are seeking to moving along the forms, seem- encompass the entire city in a ingly at the mercy of the weight- given plan and at a given lessness of the forms. The image moment, the mission of architec- has become real space and space ture as the rhythmic structuring a pure sensation of abstraction of space and time will be com- pletely and simply fulfilled.” Uto- pia has no borders. El Lissitzky’s pictures function in these terms as a bird’s eye view of the city, and represent in their vocabulary of forms a thorough further development of his art and archi- tecture. This same language of forms can also be clearly seen in his work for the theatre. The Artist as a Reformer

In 1928 El Lissitzky was commis- sioned with the design of the Soviet pavilion at the Interna- tional Press Exhibition in Cologne. The pavilion was devised as a complete work of art as propaganda, in which everything was coordinated and nothing left to chance. The red star was at the centre, the symbol of the way forwards to a classless society and like the hammer and sickle, a symbol of the communist world view. “Proletarians of all coun- tries unite!”, was written in giant letters, flyers were provided and illuminated lettering and photog- raphy completed the image pre- sented of a perfect new world that had begun its march to vic- tory. The USSR was already ruled at this time by Josef Stalin. El Lissitzky concerned himself with propaganda ever and again for the rest of his life. Fast Forward in the country was forced to give up their harvests and seed, above When in 1917 – in the middle of the all to supply the Red Army and its First World War – the Revolution needs. It was the New Economic against the Russian monarchy Policy of 1921 that saw a first was a success, an opportunity was achievement of economic growth seen for breaking entirely with and some modest prosperity. the image of mankind that had Furthermore literacy was increased existed in czarist Russia, which considerably under Lenin through had been marked by oppression the establishment of educational and serfdom. Communism supplied measures. The art world in Russia, the idea of complete equality for where EL Lissitzky had a significant all and of people living together influence, developed an incredible without private property and with vehemence for renewal in the pull a just distribution of the means of of the Revolution, which has proved production in a completely demo- to be of enormous importance for cratic society. The dictatorship of the entire further development of the proletariat, as established by art. Lenin through the assertion of the In 1924 Stalin moved into the Bolsheviks that by no means shied centre of power and put an end to away from violence, permitted the the mini-capitalist interlude of the emergence if not of a democratic, New Economic policy. The end of then at least a powerfully ideolo- the Communist Utopia began with gical framework. The hammer and Stalin and with it the avant-garde sickle symbols show how this uphe- in the arts and in particular all aval in a Russia that was still 70 % abstract trends which were forced peasant agricultural, could not be to vanish completely. Socialist achieved by the industrial workers Realism celebrated the ornament of alone, but would require the strong the masses, the portrait of the able participation of the farmers. Lenin and heroic worker, the collective expropriated the land from the farm operative on the tractor and big landowners and distributed it presented the dictator as the to the farmers to farm it on their unchallenged and heroic leader. own account. A few years later all The dictatorship became totali- private ownership holdings were tarian under Stalin and was thus nationalized and the population significantly stricter than it had been under Lenin. Major purges, was all-important for Brezhnev who compulsory labour and the Gulag maintained an unchanging system defined this period. The Moscow by refusing to introduce reforms intelligentsia was totally decimated and whose stagnant term of office under Stalin. was given the byname “the age The climate for art did not improve of lead”. Strong regulation and after the Second World War: heavy-handed paternalism, strong Khrushchev, who had supported limitations on freedom of opinion, Stalinist policies for many years, the rehabilitation of Stalin and the took over the leadership after re-introduction of his principles and the death of Stalin and now traditions brought about a neo- introduced a change in direction, by Stalinist situation. These were also condemning the brutal policies of the formative years Ilya Kabakov Stalin and by introducing a cautious experienced as an artist and with thaw of reform. In 1961 he met J. his family in Moscow. F. Kennedy in Vienna; the results It was only in the mid-1980s that of this meeting were the building the rigid Russian structures began of the Berlin Wall and the Iron to break apart, as Mikhail Gorba- Curtain. Any seeds of revolt in the chev (a man of the “Prague Spring”) satellite states of Eastern Europe took on the leadership of the (the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, USSR and opened the way to more the Prague Spring of 1968, the transparency and re-structuring in Polish revolt of 1972) were regularly Soviet society with his GLASNOST crushed by Russian force of arms. and PERESTROIKA policies. In his It was the period of a massive arms non-violent approach he firmly race, in which Khrushchev found maintained a belief in Communism an ally in Cuba and the USA came with a human face. The result was a under significant pressure (the disarmament policy (together with Cuba Crisis). Poor harvests and the Ronald Reagan), the dissolution threat of hunger, however, forced of the USSR by permitting inde- Khrushchev to buy seed in capita- pendence for the separate Soviet list countries of the West and also republics and for the dependent to give the collective farms more satellite states, the opening of own responsibility. This was not to the Iron Curtain and the fall of the the taste of the party functionaries, Berlin Wall. he was deposed and Brezhnev succeeded him in 1964. Stability