An Alternative History of Art

Ilya Kabakov is regarded as Russia's most important living artist. Together with his wife Emilia, he has conceptualized «Monument to a Lost Civilization.» The project reconstructs the condition of life in the Soviet Union and its institutional paradigms through the voices, false hopes, and dreams of the people. This project represents the main dream of the two artists for the last ten years. The book brings together sketches, drawings, and photographs of thirty-eight of the artists' installations (chosen by Kabakov as his best). This «Monument to a Lost Civilization» is the first time Kabakov's oeuvre has been displayed this way — and as such it is the most thorough, unified treatment to date of this important artist's work. Concerning itself with the «everydayness» of life in the former Soviet Republics, the entire book attempts to document a complex psychological, political, and social web that has since been changed irrevocably and forever.