Ilya Kabakov and the Soviet Apartment as Art

He was born in the 33rd year of the last century. He always ran away from home, sprinting down the street with a plan to never come back.

The strongest itch is not to remain where life has placed you. Do not settle in one spot. Escape into space. Humanity, especially Soviet humanity, has long been obsessed with the unknown. He urged himself to move to places where he was not, to seek freedom beyond the Soviet Iron Curtain. (reference to the work about the man who fled from his room into space).

War and evacuation shaped the ordinary life of a Soviet everyman. A brutal beating by classmates could be endured, but a mother’s order insisted on finding a common language with them. He began to draw horses and to channel his frustrations into art, even when classmates mocked him.

He later studied at an art school in Moscow. His mother lived in the margins. Without a Moscow residence permit, he slept in model corners and wore the same clothes, while police checked for any sign of indifference.

The recording became a famous Soviet phenomenon, a paper shackles on a little man. Mothers learned to hide from denunciations, ready to make a sudden appearance as if they were accidental guests. It was the everyday life of the Soviet era.

He ran away again in 1988, and no one caught him. Thanks to reform era changes, his journey ended in the United States. There, he emerged as the most renowned conceptual artist shown in leading museums around the world.

On May 27, at age 90, Ilya Kabakov died. He was praised as the anti-poet of Soviet daily life. Like Dante, who described hell in vivid poetry, Bunin spoke of Russia’s audacity in cursed days, while Kabakov illustrated the hell of everyday Soviet existence. He even named a common apartment as a circle of hell in his own way.

Kabakov stood as a provocative poet who exposed disgust for the Soviet way of life.

The public knows him, has heard of his work, and has seen installations in the Tretyakov Gallery. Ordinary people care about art, and the Tretyakov Gallery remains a beloved destination. The most expensive painting in recent times—the insect piece nicknamed the “Bug”—sold for millions, underscoring the irony in contemporary art markets.

That overpricing is part of a broader commentary on consumer culture, a concept Kabakov explored through works that critique authorship and the inflation of value. His stencil drawings and the reaction against ultra-expensive pieces echo his thoughts on society.

On the same day, a viewing of Andrey Smirnov’s new film “For Us With You” offered another take on Soviet life as one vast communal circle. The idea of a kommunalka, a shared living space, serves as a powerful metaphor for collective life.

Why does the Soviet experience resonate in a broader sense? Life feels crowded, repetitive, and collective. People strive for something better, yet often fall short, starting first with small freedoms and then seeking larger ones. The site itself feels like a gathering place—a place where the state and the individual meet.

Communal life is a major theme. Where are you now? Kommunalka, you feel like a captive, yet the story of parents in Moscow’s communal apartments reveals a world where neighbors shared everything. The memory of cramped housing in Moscow shows how families lived together for decades, sometimes clashing, sometimes surviving through sheer resilience.

Dostoevsky described hell as a prison bathroom; Kabakov offered another metaphor for the Soviet bathroom and its life. A cramped, noisy, and stifling world where secrets, minor thefts, and petty arguments shaped daily behavior. Children grew up under pressure, and even the cheerful Soviet radio program could not wholly mask the sense of burden.

Meanwhile, the film “For You and Us” presents a fresh set of visual templates that invite viewers to observe without speaking, almost suffocating in the opening frames. Kabakov’s work, which has drawn renewed attention, uses textual and visual Soviet motifs—toys, corridors, pots, pans, slogans, orders, and bureaucratic notes—to craft an independent, provocative voice.

Ultimately, the project becomes a humorous, double portrait of Soviet life. Kabakov pioneered the term “total installation,” a form that presents the entire Soviet context as a singular art object. Gorky spoke of a lesser realm; Dostoevsky wrote of hell in a bathroom; Kabakov placed hell inside the communal apartment. He remarked, in his own words, that much of his work is rooted in Russian literature rather than painting, all aimed at understanding unhappiness.

These works reflect variants of a great Russian tale about a little man crushed by an indifferent universe. Yet there is a moment of realization: life has moved on, and the person may not fully know what happened. The reflections offered here are personal, not necessarily shared by editors.