(born Dnjepropetrovsk, Ukraine in 1933; lives and works in New York)
Landscape with Pioneer Camp 1973, 2002, oil on canvas, 160 x 250 cm, signed, dated and titled Ilya Kabakov 2002 in Cyrillic script on the reverse, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
The artist
Galerie Michael Kewenig, Cologne
Harrie van der Moesdijk Collection, The Netherlands

The work has been registered by the archive under the no. 382.

Literature:
Renate Petzinger and Emilia Kabakov (Eds), Ilya Kabakov, Paintings/Gemälde 1998-2008, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Museum Wiesbaden, published by Kerber, 2008, p.40, no.420
Exh. cat., Ilya/Emilia Kabakov, An alternative history of art, Rosenthal, Kabakov, Spivak, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Bielefeld 2005, p.77 (colour ill.)

Exhibited/exh. cat.:
Cleveland, Ohio, Museum of Contemporary Art, The teacher and the student, Charles Rosenthal and Ilya Kabakov, curated by Jill Synder, Director of the MOCA Cleveland, 10.9.2004–2.1.2005
The State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Center for Contemporary Culture Garage, Winzavod Moskau Contemporary Art Center, Moscow, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Retrospective, 15.9.-18.10.2008, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Cinematography and the Moscow Biennale Foundation (3 catalogues)

“Landscape with a Pioneer camp 1973” is part of the large installation which Ilya Kabakov first exhibited in 2004 at a solo exhibition under the title “The Teacher and his Student: Charles Rosenthal and Ilya Kabakov” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland. The political situation in 1970s Russia forced many artists to enter a dialectic relationship between themselves and the outside world. Kabakov handles the dilemma of dialectic in his exhibition “The Teacher and his Student” by creating an alter ego, Charles Rosenthal, and setting his work in the Soviet Union of the 1970s, effectively constructing an ‘alternative history’ of 20th century Russian painting in the form of an installation.

All these alternatives were the product of Kabakov’s fantasy, taking form as three different, imaginary artists: Rosenthal and Ilya Kabakov, and Igor Spivak whose works data to the 1990s. “Kabakov” is not the originator of the other two artists, but rather the successor to Rosenthal, who was primarily active in the 1970s, and taking his mentor’s photographs as the inspiration for his own works.

“Taken together the works of these three artists comprise a pungent, sweeping alternative history of Russian art and culture in the 20th century, and the role of both in world culture. The key is the character sandwiched in the middle, the ‘artist’ Ilya Kabakov, …This was an artist caught between the either-or absurdities of home-grown Socialist Realism and the modernist west. … In the real world of art and life, it is to measure himself against the canon of art history. ‘That is my criteria, but my talent, my potential, my love is not adequate for this,’” said Ilya Kabakov to Amei Wallach on 12 October 2004. “It is his ambition to leap to ‘the pinnacle of art history.’ But he comes from a society that was a ‘failed project. It risked a vault towards heaven, and it crashed. That is what underlies my psychology. Either I spring to the position of Malevich or I plunge down.’ He wants to be Icarus. But he is well aware of the dangers of getting too close to the sun, which is why light is both the subject and the essential material of his art. So he lets Rosenthal, Kabakov and Spivak do the flying for him. And he remains the director/curator, arranging their work in a theatrical progression that ignites in the viewer equal parts of awe, frustration and confusion.” (Amei Wallach, Charles Rosenthal and the Soul of the Old Century in the exh. cat.: An alternative history of art, Rosenthal, Kabakov, Spivak, Bielefeld 2005, p.147 and 149)

The works in the installation/exhibition which he signed Ilya Kabakov date to the period between 1970 and 1975, the majority of them executed in 1971 and 1972. The series should be understood as ‘paraphrasing’ Rosenthal’s works which Kabakov saw in the original, and could be titled “If Rosenthal had lived in Russia during the 1970s…”
“The white backgrounds behind the depictions of the new reality of the 1920s in the USSR can be interpreted as a space of the ‘bright future’, a space of ‘hope’ that not only Rosenthal, but also many European intellectuals, desired to see in the post-revolutionary period in the early 20th century. I. Kabakov belonged to another generation that had grown up in USSR, a generation that had no more ‘bright hopes’, neither in the present, nor even more so, in the future. Therefore he replaces the white space behind Rosenthal’s paintings with a dark, murky gloom. Something is going on in this space, it is rustling about; there is some kind of infinite, unfathomable chaos living beyond the fine film of visible reality.” (Exh. cat.: An alternative history of art, Rosenthal, Kabakov, Spivak, Bielefeld 2005, p.162)

The artists offers the viewer details and insights into life in the Soviet Union of the 1970s by constructing and staging the utopia of everyday Soviet life. He contrasted scenes of daily life at work and play, depicted in accordance with the conventions of Soviet Realism, with geometric forms, reminiscent of Suprematist motifs. Yet Kabakov’s paintings allows us only to glimpse part of the overall view. He introduces people and places, allowing the circumstances to shine through using an atmospheric, almost impressionist technique, only to hide them again behind dark beams. The depiction of themes typical of Soviet genre painting in light sunlight are alternatively disrupted by the dark areas around the edges.

The subject of childhood and youth, and the liveliness, flexibility and impartiality of the young, pervades Kabakov’s works as a discourse on conformity. In this work a pioneer camp – a children’s holiday camp for youth organisations – represents a part of the education system in Soviet commonwealth states. During the early school years, the prospect of taking part in a holiday camp was praised as a ‘paradise on earth’, a prize for worthy ‘young pioneers’. For those socialised in the commonwealth states, the concept and depiction of the pioneer camp is charged with associations and memories, hinting at a conscious nostalgia. The ‘total installation’, Kabakov noted, is a ‘sacred space’, inviting the viewer to experience the installation rooms as would an Orthodox believer, sinking into reverie before an icon. The moments of timelessness appear as islands in a longing for paradise and home. In Western countries, the pioneer camps were largely unknown, and are therefore represented by a white patches on the map.