Conceptual Art Concept Art Art of the 1960

Conceptual Art, Concept Art • Art of the 1960 s, 1970 s and 1980 s which is created according to one or more of the following principles: • 1. That art consists in the basic idea, which does not have to be embodied in a physical form. • 2. That language becomes the basic material of art, and the barrier between art and art theory is breached.

Conceptual Art, Concept Art • 3. That artistic activity becomes an enquiry into the nature of art itself, and any result or embodiment must be regarded simply as an interim demonstration of the general conclusion reached by the artist. Among the artists associated with conceptual art are Lawrence Weiner, Sol Lewitt, Joseph Kosuth and Bruce Nauman… Edward Lucie. Smith, The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms, 1995, p. 56

Il’ia Kabakov and Conceptual Art

Ten Characters 1985

Focus on… • • • Soviet emigration (Re-)Construction of Soviet life Representation of private / domestic space Representation of (inter-)national space Role of objects / commodities in everyday life Analysis of ‘total installation’ as a work of art

Space • In real terms communal flats & private vs public • In symbolic terms state propaganda aviation hero K’s installation undermine propaganda myth of flight existential theme & religious and philosophical connotations

10 characters + Communal flat • Our communal apartment is large, twelve families. We live in a four-story building, on the last floor. Almost every day for a few months he went to the attic, the neighbours asked what he was doing there, but he almost never talked to anyone, and almost never used the kitchen, even though his door was just opposite it, he would only put the teapot on to boil.

Communal flats • Private becomes public and vice versa • Mix of people with different social backgrounds • CF characters • CF humour • CF nostalgia

The aviation hero • Stalin / Socialist realism • Pilots astronauts • Boris Groys “Space travel reactivated the utopia that once gave birth to Soviet power” • In the realm of the imaginary

The character’s thoughts • He drew himself on the big white board, depicting himself as a small gray figure, barely discernible on the enormous board standing in front of him in the small room. He looks at himself, so small and plain, lost in the huge space of the empty white field, and a strange, surprising state envelops him. . The white board stops being just a white board and becomes for him at first a white fog, and then the fog disappears, dispersing, and the "white" at which he continues to look gradually turns into an enormous bright expanse pierced by an even, sparkling light. The light in this space simultaneously stands still and flows from some infinite distance, from some sort of good and wonderful source. He moves toward it, sitting in front of this magic screen.

Nikolaev's Story • I didn't know him well. . . He arrived two years ago, having been recruited for a construction job. He was given a room in our communal apartment. Where he worked, I don't know. I was his neighbour, his room was to the right of mine, he never visited me, and he let others into his room reluctantly. I don't know if he has anyone, he always lived alone. Two fellows sometimes came to see him. One of them brought the painting which is hanging in his room. When he moved in, he remodelled his room, he couldn't get his hands on any wallpaper so he covered everything with posters which he bought, and said it would be cheaper that way.

Nikolaev's Story • He lived very poorly, without any furniture, he slept on a folding cot without a sheet. . . • He felt, as he told me, that he wasn't quite an inhabitant of Earth as though he had been born not here at all, and that not waiting for death, he had to leave for there, where according to him, he should be. . . I'll tell you a little about his "grand theory".