Ilya und Emilia Kabakov

Since he emigrated to the West in 1989, Ilya Kabakov (now seventy years of age) and his wife Emilia have become two of the most important »masters« of the visual arts today. The work of the Kabakovs goes beyond any historical categorisation, although the viewer does receive the impression that the work refers to a specific historical point of view and to a real space. However, in a certain sense, the works are fictitious. The viewer sees staged events that never took place at all. Kabakov does not regard planet Earth as a suitable home for human beings. And human beings do not play a role in his installations. The five hundred almost unknown drawings and the fifty models of all of their new architectural projects in this book show the diverse utopic dimension of the work of the Kabakovs.