Russian-American artist Ilya Kabakov, world famous for his utopias, died at 89

“The man who spent his life imagining utopia left this world on Saturday May 27, surrounded by his loved ones, at the dawn of his 90th birthday“, announced the Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Foundation in a statement posted on Facebook, without specifying the place of residence and death of the artist.The family will hold a private funeral followed by a public memorial service in several weeks“, it is specified, asking that”instead of flowers“, donations are made for the benefit of the Ship of Tolerancea work created by the artist and his wife to promote peace and tolerance between peoples.

“It is with great emotion that we learn today of the passing of Ilya Iossifovich Kabakov, an essential artist for more than 70 years.“, reacted the Center Pompidou, in which Ilya Kabakov had exhibited his installation in 1995 for several months. This is where we live. The center has announced that it will dedicate an exhibition to him in 2024.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, iconic couple

Ilya Kabakov was born in 1933 in the former USSR in Dniepropetrovsk, which became Dnipro in what is now Ukraine. He painted and drew in Moscow from the 1950s until the 1980s. His installations, which evoke daily life in the USSR and make fun of the Soviet way of life, are internationally renowned. From 1989, Ilya Kabakov began to work with Emilia, a pianist by training, who would become his wife in 1992, the year they moved to New York.

Having become an inseparable duo, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov took over the 13,500 m² of the Grand Palais in Paris in 2014 with a monumental work, The Strange City. Together, they were notably awarded the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, the Praemium Imperiale or the El Greco Prize for all of their work. They are also honorary academicians of the Vienna University of Art, the Moscow Art Academy, the Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Bern in Switzerland.