The exhibition “El Lissitzky – Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.

Utopia and
Reality” is a dialogue between two Russian artists over several
generations and almost a century. Ilya Kabakov engages in a
dialogue with the visionary of the Russian avant-garde, El
Lissitzky, who with his designs was key in shaping the lexicon of
form of a period of upheaval, placing art directly in the service of
social reform. Both artists stand for two generations that followed
each other, one for the implementation of communist visions –
the other for its deconstruction.
On show in the Kunsthaus Graz is a version of the 2013
exhibition displayed in the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL),
adapted for Graz by Ilya and Emila Kabakov. Mostly recently it
has been hosted in the State Hermitage Museum in St.
Petersburg (28.06.–25.08.2013) and in the Multimedia Art
Museum in Moscow (17.9.-17.11.2013). In more than 40 original
works by El Lissitzky from 1919- 1930, as well as in impressive
reconstructions of his models as spatial total works of art,
generally comprehensible geometric forms become tangible as
constructivist and at the same time political visions. In contrast,
the installation and painted works of Ilya Kabakov, who has
collaborated with his wife Emilia since his move to the USA, draw
a picture of failed utopia reality, paired with conceptual
metaphysics.
The utopian architecture of the Kunsthaus inspired the artists to a
stroll through two opposing worldviews, arranged in semi-circles.
Unlike in Eindhoven, where the works were organised in themes
in a linear space and placed with juxtaposing work themes,
universes are created in the Space01 parallel to one another, as
well as a deconstructing clash of fictions, realities and time
periods. The artists’ works are sub-divided into six themes,
ranging from the awakening of space through to unrealised
utopia, and ultimately converge in one communal, large, central
room.
It begins with vastness – both of the open surface and its
promise of the new. From 1919, El Lissitzky with his Proun works
set into motion the zero point of art in the picture as laid down by
Malevich. He conceived of the image-free, utopian space for
painting, as well as the new life freed from the history of what
had preceded, as a focused upheaval. A great promise which,
combined with the beginning of the Soviet Union, turned into a
visually powerful language, the reality of which for the younger
generation of Ilya Kabakov is also to turn into the threatening
vacuum, into life on the margins, and into permanent doubt
about the pure idea, the concept, but also about the conceptual
as well. What in Lissitzky’s case bears the jubilant title
of Cosmos becomes in Kabakov’s response the Voices in the
Void, and gathers Kabakov’s first works, which reached the west,
too: the works Along the Edge which place man on the periphery
of vision, though depict his reality – albeit in miniature format – as
breathing with difficulty, nonetheless. It is the works acquired in
the 1970s by the Swiss diplomat and collector Paul Jolles that
paved the way for the artist out of socialism.
With Lissitzky the chapters Clarity of Forms follow, with the
designs for Wolkenbügel (1925) and Victory over the
Everyday among others – the vision of an ordered and optimised
city life in ideal architecture and its reduced expression of
movement. Kabakov responds with the
chapters Garbage and Everyday’s Victory and produces works
such as 16 Ropes from 1986 or the Communal Kitchen from
1991, works concerned with the phenomenon of the impossibility
of escaping from the garbage of the past and from the
attributions of others.
In the fourth chapter, in Monument to a Leader and Monument to
a Tyrant, political leaders stand opposed to one another twice:
once as an ideal to be emulated, and once as a direct danger
which considers the monument and its base, as well as its
metaphorical meaning too, as an intrinsic danger for fighting off
man. Two rooms follow which becomes three-dimensional as
human visions. With the Proun Room, El Lissitzky constructs
from the pictorial space an emotional space that is conditioned
only by the design of the form, which attracts, guides and moves
observers. Kabakov’s The man who flew into space from his
apartment (1985) confronts this as a location of a desperate
eruption, and as a visually striking, constructed fantasy, as a
lived, secret dream of the original Russian vision of space.
n Trust in the New World Lissitzky’s model worlds are gathered,
e.g. the folder of figurines, or the model based on ‘Proun 1E –
The City’ (1920-1921, construction: 2009). Kabakov responds in
the chapter Unrealized Utopia with a group of models which
already – and precisely as designs too, or as dreams – have their
meaning; thus, for example, Palace of Projects or The Vertical
Opera (both 1988). They include the public directly in the artistic
process of reflection and the will to design a better world.
In the last chapter both artists encounter one another as Artist as
Reflecting Character and as Artist as Reformer. Here too, clear
affinities become evident: both were also occupied in their hearts
with the graphics and have occasionally earned their living with
commissions. Even though they do not conform with the system
in the same way, they have both discovered in drawing the
potential for merging language and form, although – as the
placards, posters, books and sketch clearly show – they have
employed it in as different a way for their artistic development as
their history is different.
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue,
produced by the Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, with texts by
Charles Esche, Boris Groys, Anton Vidokle, and others.
 MANAS
ILYA AND EMILIA KABAKOV

The installation is housed in two dwellings. A wooden model of the

city of “Manas” stands in an oval layout on a pedestal in the
central space. Another city made of fiberglass hangs from the
ceiling above it. This city shines, and moreover the bright light
emanating from the crater of this “heavenly” city falls precisely
into the lake of the lower city (see sketch). The walls are dark,
and therefore everything appears in stark contrast. In a ring type
arrangement around the central hall, there are 8 models on
pedestals of those same buildings and objects that are located on
the peaks of the mountains. They are magnified in terms of size
and each is accompanied by a large sketch and text explaining
their composition and meaning. This “external” space is darkened
as well, and the light is concentrated only on the objects, just like
it is in the central hall, hence creating an atmosphere of an
aloofness and enigmatic quality.
Overall Appearance of the Structure and Required Materials
The entire structure represents two ovals, one inserted into the
other, with two entrances into the inner oval and one into the outer
one. The entire structure is made of wood or aluminum structures
and gypsum tiles.
List of Objects in the Installation and Materials for the
Structure
1. Large model, 5 x 3 m, 0.90 m high (wood).
2. Model with lighting, 5 x 3 m, 0.90 m high (fiberglass, lamps).
3. 8 models, 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.7 m (wood, mixed materials).
4. 8 sketches, 120 x 170 cm (paper, pastel).
5. Texts of translations, a general explanation in frames (paper,
wood).
6. Lighting system, bulbs (22).
 7. Pedestal under the large model, 7 x 5 m, 35 cm high (wood).
8. Walls (2 rows inside the two oval spaces), 5.5 m high
(aluminum construction, gypsum tiles).
9. 3 doors, 0.90 x 2.00 m (wood).
10. 8 pedestals for the 8 models, 0.5 x 0.5 x 1.4 m (wood)
11. Assembly system for the lights and the model under the
ceiling (metal).
12. Painting of the walls (of both spaces), acrylic paint.

CONCEPT OF THE INSTALLATION

The utopian city of Manas is a model that reconstructs a city that
used to exist in northern Tibet (of course, it existed in the
imagination of the authors who are captivated by the legend of the
land of Shambhala). This city existed on two levels – on the level
of the banal, everyday life that is occurring on the earth, and on
the level of contact with a more sublime world, primarily, with the
cosmos. This contact arose when the inhabitants of the city had
ascended to the peaks of the 8 mountains that formed a ring
surrounding the city. There are various objects located on each of
these peaks, and by entering into them one could acquire cosmic
energy, one could enter into contact with extra-terrestrial
civilizations, wind up in gardens of paradise. Each of the
mountains had its own special meaning.
In the center of the city there was a deep circular cavity with
perfectly round edges that was filled with water. But the unique
thing about “Manas” was not just these 8 mountains and the
crater, but the fact that there was an exact identical city that was
clearly discernible during certain days of the year, only this one
hovered in the sky. The “earthy” Manas was an exact copy of the
“heavenly” Manas.
 COMMENTARY
The model of the utopian city of Manas represents a
reconstruction of a city that existed at one time in northern Tibet.
This city existed on two levels: on the level of the banal, everyday
life that is occurring on the earth; and on the level of contact with
a loftier world, primarily, with the cosmos. This contact arose
when the inhabitants of the city had ascended to the peaks of the
8 mountains that formed a ring surrounding the city. There were
various objects located on each of these peaks, and inside of
these objects one could receive cosmic energy, one could interact
with extra-terrestrial civilizations, wind up in gardens of
paradise. . .
In the center of the city there was a deep circular cavity
resembling the crater of an extinct volcano. But the unique thing
about this place was not just these 8 mountains and the crater,
but the fact that there was an exact identical city that was clearly
discernible during certain days of the year, only this one hovered
in the sky. Hence, the “earthy” Manas was an exact copy of the
“heavenly” Manas.