Nad 'Portikusom' (Komarov who flew away)

Figures in flight, hovering above the Soviet urban landscapes are a recurring theme in Ilya Kabakov’s early work. Suspended between a dream and reality, the figures are infused with references to Kabakov’s experiences of collective society and utopianism in the USSR. The fictional character Komorov features in one of the albums of narrative drawings that Kabakov produced in Moscow in the 1970s, titled The Flying Komorov.

Kabakov left Moscow in the mid-1980s and settled in New York in 1987. He began exhibiting his drawings, paintings and complex installations widely in this period, including early exhibitions at Riverside Studios and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1989.

Lisa Newby, June 2022