New Realities
With dramatic flair, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov bring Eastern European conceptualism to Dallas Contemporary. INTERVIEW BY CHRIS BYRNE
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ased in North Fork, Long Island, husband-andwife duo Ilya and Emilia Kabakov are Russianborn conceptual artists who blur the boundaries of everyday elements with the dramatic and conceptual to create immersive installations. Having come of age in the former Soviet Union, the pair’s invented realities and environments examine the human condition rooted within the murkiness of power, control, oppression, and destruction. Ilya + Emilia: Paintings About Paintings, on view at Dallas Contemporary, ushers in the Kabakovs’ paintings, sculptures, public projects, interactive works, and an installation space all responding to the stimuli of theater, architecture, and music.
Top: Ilya and Emilia, Holiday #13, 2016, oil on canvas, 39.37 x 63 x 3.14 in. © Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. Right: Ilya and Emilia, Two Fragments, 2019, oil on canvas, 59 x 56.69 in. © Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.
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