Ilya Kabakov

1933 Russian-American installation artist, graphic artist, and representative of Moscow Conceptualism. Born in 1933 in Dnipropetrovsk, USSR. He graduated from the Graphic Arts Department of the Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute. He worked as an illustrator of children's literature (for magazines such as Malysh, Murzilka, Veselye Kartinki, and others), while simultaneously creating graphic works – albums (sets of sheets with drawings and texts). In the 1970s, he was part of the nonconformist artists' group "Sretensky Boulevard" (Ilya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Viktor Pivovarov, and others). In the 1980s, he turned to total installations that recreated the everyday life of communal apartments. Kabakov's works The Beetle ($5.8 million, 2008) and “Luxury Suite" ($4.1 million, 2006) were sold at Phillips de Pury in London, making Ilya Kabakov the most expensive Russian artist of the second half of the 20th century. Since 1988, he has lived and worked in New York with his wife, Emilia Kabakova. In 2017–2018, a major retrospective of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Not Everyone Will Be Taken Into the Future, took place across three venues: Tate Modern (London), the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), and the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow). His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Hermitage Museum, and the State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg).