Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, January 21, 2026 : Ilya Kabakov, an Ukrainian-born American conceptual artist (#2465)

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Artist of the Day, January 21, 2026 : Ilya Kabakov, an Ukrainian-born American conceptual artist (#2465)

Ilya Iosifovich Kabakov (1933 – 2023) was an American and Soviet conceptual artist, born in Dnipropetrovsk in what was then the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union, now Ukraine. He worked for thirty years in Moscow, from the 1950s until the late 1980s. After emigrating to the United States he lived and worked on Long Island.

Ilya Iosifovich Kabakov was born in Dnipropetrovsk. His mother and his father were Jewish. Ilya was evacuated during World War II to Samarkand with his parents. There he started attending the school of the Leningrad Academy of Art. His classmates included the painter Mikhail Turovsky. At 18, he moved to Moscow to attend the Surikov Art Institute, where he graduated with a specialty in graphic design and book illustration.

Unlike many underground Soviet artists, Kabakov joined the Union of Soviet Artists in 1959 and became a full member in 1962. This was a prestigious position in the USSR and it brought with it substantial material benefits. In general, Kabakov illustrated children's books for 3 to 6 months a year and then spent the remainder of his time on his own projects.

In the vibrant art scene of 1970s Moscow, Ilya Kabakov's unconventional talent found an unexpected champion in Dina Vierny, a distinguished gallerist with a keen eye for groundbreaking art. Vierny, after a visit in Moscow in the early 1970s, committed to supporting artists resisting the constraints of socialist realism, discovered Kabakov. The fateful meeting occurred on the evening of January 16, 1970, when Vierny recognized Kabakov as an artist of exceptional originality, despite being unknown and prohibited from exhibiting in Moscow. Vierny's genuine interest in Kabakov's work transcended time, enduring for over 27 years. Despite Kabakov's infrequent exhibitions in Moscow, his drawings managed to captivate international audiences. Vierny not only encouraged Kabakov to leave the Soviet Union for broader recognition but also actively supported him by acquiring a substantial number of his works. This support was not limited to Kabakov alone; Vierny, upon her return, brought back works by other non-conformist artists such as Erik Boulatov and Vladimir Yankilevsky, known as the Group of Boulevard Sretensky. Together, these artists, despite differing styles, shared a common struggle against state-imposed artistic limitations, particularly the constraints of socialist realism. Vierny's commitment culminated in the groundbreaking exhibition "Russian Avant-Garde - Moscow 1973" at her Saint-Germain-des-Prés gallery, showcasing the diverse yet united front of non-conformist artists challenging the artistic norms of their time.

Between 1983 and 2000, Kabakov created 155 installations. Of these, one of the best known installations is The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment. First created in 1985 in a secret attic studio in Moscow, Kabakov later recreated the piece in the United States at Ronald Feldman Gallery in 1988. The installation portrays a small, run-down bedroom with a large hole in the ceiling and propaganda photos covering the walls. The exhibition was widely reviewed, securing Kabakov's reputation in the New York art world.

Kabakov emigrated to Austria in 1987, then the United States in 1988, following the gradual exhibition of his works in the West. A year after arriving in New York, he met curator and dealer Emilia Kanevsky, who was also his niece; they married in 1992. For three decades, the couple collaborated on numerous exhibitions, including Documenta in 1992, the Venice Biennale in 1993, the Whitney Biennial in 1997, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in 2004, and the Tate Modern and the Hirshhorn in 2017.

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