Today Ilya and Emilia Kabakov are recognised as the most important living Russian artists. Their multidisciplinary practice, spanning drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, modifies our perceptions of everyday life. Including the public space they extended the concept of installation without creating a new marked definition. While grappling with the pre-modern period from Renaissance art to the 19th century they found their own means of expression. One example is the much-noticed installation The Strange City for Monumenta 2014 at the Grand Palais, the venue of the Paris Photo. The creation of a utopian city abounds with art-historical references in addition to motifs from modern science and represents the synthesis of a long artistic career.

Text by: Matthias Haldemann, Ilya Kabakov, Emilia Kabakov, Robert Storr