“…The sad moment began
around 2003, when I felt that everything I was doing in the new time that had
arrived in its turn was no longer needed…”
Mikhail
Epstein, Ilya Kabakov, Catalogue
I first met Ilya Kabakov through
Vanechka Chuikov in the early 1970s. Our trio with Vyacheslav Ganelin and
Vladimir Chekasin often came from Vilnius to Moscow to present each new
program. Vanya always came to our concerts and brought friends with him, Ilya
among them. It was a great pleasure to play for them. I wrote about this circle
of friends in my book A Drummer’s Diaries.
https://rosphoto.org/media/virtual-exhibitions/dnevniki-barabanshhika/chapter-iii/
Ilya and I became close friends.
Whenever I came to Moscow, I often stayed at his studio on Sretensky Boulevard.
It was an extraordinary creative environment—a gathering place for artists,
writers, and poets; Alexander Piatigorsky and Merab Mamardashvili would stop by
as well. Playing for them was a pleasure, whether on drums, pots and pans, or,
in Natalia Gutman’s case, on the cello. The concentration of creative energy
was so intense that it seemed any idea could come to life in that space.
From the mid-1970s onward, our trio
regularly toured abroad, and I would bring Ilya things that could not be bought
in the Artists’ Union shops: paper, pencils, paints. Ilya and his then wife,
Viktoria Mochalova, would give me gifts and letters to take to friends who had
emigrated to the West; on the way back, I carried letters and gifts from them
to Ilya and our other Moscow friends.
We shared almost everything with
one another, including problems both professional and personal. “Volodya, don’t
get caught—and don’t make any sudden moves,” Ilya would tell me whenever I
found myself in some sort of dispute. That was Ilya in a nutshell: an
astonishing combination of a conformist in everyday life and a nonconformist in
art—uncompromising, free of prejudice and convention.
The story that follows would be
incomplete without giving due credit to the people who recognized Ilya Kabakov
as an artist. It was thanks to them that Ilya built his career in the West:
In 1984, Dominique Bozo, director
of the Centre Pompidou, came to Moscow and acquired for the museum the album
The Flying Komarov (1974) from the Ten Characters cycle. In 1987, Ilya donated
the album Primakov Sitting in the Closet (1971) to the Centre Pompidou, and in
1990 the museum acquired the installation The Man Who Flew into Space from His
Apartment (1985) and two paintings.
In the mid-1980s, Swiss diplomat
Paul Jolles and Jean-Hubert Martin, then director of the Kunsthalle in Bern,
saw Kabakov’s work in Moscow. With their involvement, an exhibition of
Kabakov’s work opened in Bern in the summer of 1986; in 1988, thanks to Martin
von Walterskirchen, another exhibition followed in Switzerland. Dina Vierny,
who had been buying works by Moscow unofficial artists since the 1970s,
organized Ilya’s first solo exhibition in Paris in 1985.
Ronald Feldman played a
particularly important role in Kabakov’s American story. Ilya’s first American
exhibition, Ten Characters, took place at his New York gallery in 1988,
followed by other works; in 1992 the gallery presented our joint installation Incident
at the Museum, or Water Music. Feldman introduced Kabakov to leading artists,
art historians, and curators, including Robert Storr.
By the time Ilya moved to the
United States, he was already a well-known artist with an established
international career.
I dwell on this because the history
of authorship of some of Kabakov’s works later came to look different from what
it had been at the time they were created. This includes works that Ilya
Kabakov and I made together.
From the late 1970s through 1996,
Ilya and I created a number of performances and installations for which I
composed music and made musical arrangements:
1. OLGA GEORGIEVNA, SOMETHING IS
BURNIN
A performance created in Kabakov’s
Moscow studio in the early 1980s; we later presented it in various countries.
Released on CD in 1994 by Sonore Records (SN011CD).
Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf. The
original has been in the collection of Museum Wiesbaden since 2001; an
authorized copy made in 2008 is in the State Hermitage Museum.
3. INCIDENT AT THE MUSEUM OR
WATER MUSIC (1992)
Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York.
Released on CD in 1994 by Sonore Records (SN007CD). In the V-A-C Foundation
collection in Moscow since 2023.
4. CONCERT FOR A FLY (1993)
On permanent display at the Château
d’Oiron in France.
5. THE RED PAVILION (1993)
La Biennale di Venezia. In the
collection of Museum Ludwig in Cologne since 1993.
6. THE RED CORNER (1994)
Kulturhuset, Stockholm.
7. THREE SONGS ABOUT THE
MOTHERLAND (1995)
Part of the exhibition C’EST ICI
QUE NOUS VIVONS at the Centre Georges Pompidou. It consisted of three
independent objects: “About the Motherland,” “About Work,” and “About Love.”
8. THE FLIES (1995)
For orchestra, video projection,
two readers, and the David Dorfman Dance Company. Majestic Theater at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.
9. MUSIC ON THE WATER (1996)
Collection Landeskulturzentrum
Salzau.
I took part in creating these
works, and I can therefore describe what happened to some of them years later.
I will focus only on those cases in which the later attribution or the
composition of the work differs from the original.
Incident at the Museum, or Water Music
The installation was first shown in
1992 at Ronald Feldman Fine Art in New York. It was subsequently exhibited at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in
Darmstadt, Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona, Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon,
and, in 2000, at the Grand Palais in Paris. In all the accompanying catalogues,
the work was credited to Ilya Kabakov and Vladimir Tarasov: Ilya as the author
of the visual component, and I as the author of the musical one.
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After 2000, the installation was
not shown for a long time. In 2018 I received a letter from Zelfira Tregulova,
then director of the Tretyakov Gallery, saying that she had reached an
agreement with Emilia Kabakov and that the work would be shown in Moscow. I was
delighted—it seemed strange to me that, after so many museum exhibitions, it
had not been shown anywhere for almost two decades.
Several months before the opening,
I wrote to Emilia to coordinate the installation dates. She replied that they
would no longer use my music in this installation. This came as a surprise: we
had never discussed such a change. A lengthy correspondence with Emilia and
Zelfira Tregulova followed, ending with the decision not to show the work at
the Tretyakov Gallery.
In 2022, I received a series of
letters from Emilia proposing that I relinquish my copyright in the
installation in exchange for compensation: “…and you will get compensation
now.”
The correspondence also
included the words: “…or I will simply sell all the paintings now and say that
this installation will never exist.” She also wrote: “…let’s resolve all of
this before he even learns about this conflict.” I later learned that at the
same time Emilia Kabakov was negotiating with the V-A-C Foundation over its
acquisition of the work.
In October 2024, a friend
called me from an exhibition at GES-2 in Moscow, where he was standing in front
of our installation. I asked him to switch on video and walk over to the wall
label. My name was not there. Emilia Kabakov’s name appeared in its place.
I contacted the V-A-C Foundation
and asked that my name be restored to the attribution of the work. This
revealed an important contradiction: in a GES-2 Telegram post of May 28, 2023,
dedicated to the memory of Ilya Kabakov, the same installation was illustrated
with a photograph from the Feldman Gallery, and I was credited as the author of
the music.
In the latest version of the
agreement between the V-A-C Foundation and me, my co-authorship was stated
explicitly: “Vladimir Tarasov co-authored the work (together with Ilya Kabakov)
as a composer and visual artist, creating a complete original musical sound
environment.” Yet, as the Foundation informed me, the question of Emilia
Kabakov’s co-authorship remained a matter of principle for her.
It is not just a question of
authorship. If the music system I created is removed from the installation, the
work itself changes—it ceases to be what it originally was. The instruments in
this piece are pots, buckets, and frying pans placed on the floor. I selected
them for pitch and dynamics, and organized the water system so that the falling
drops and streams would create a musical structure.
Zelfira Tregulova was the curator
of the exhibition at GES-2. In her description of the work, she wrote that the
water dripped “randomly.” Yet that description is difficult to reconcile either
with the original structure of the installation or with Kabakov’s own account
of it.
Ilya himself described the
installation in musical terms: “… The quiet of the museum’s galleries is
suddenly transformed into a strange music, a music of falling water. Streams
and drops in various parts of the galleries form a complex polyphony.” (Vladimir
Tarasov, Water Music, Sonore Records SN 007, Lithuania, 1994, p. 3.) And “…This
entire original music play, as well as the system of water pipes under the
ceiling and floor was created by the composer Vladimir Tarasov.” (Ilya
Kabakov: On the “Total” Installation, Cantz Verlag, Germany, 1995, p. 309.)
When I asked the Foundation to
provide the agreement under which the work had entered its collection, I was
told that the installation had been donated to the Foundation, but that the
document itself could not be provided for reasons of confidentiality. For me,
this episode ultimately raised a question not only about attribution, but also
about how the history of a work is recorded after its creation.
The Installation Red Wagon
After being shown at the Kunsthalle
Düsseldorf in 1991, Red Wagon was stored for a time with Dina Vierny in Paris.
In 1999 it was sent to an exhibition at Museum Wiesbaden, where it has been on
permanent display since 2001.
In 2000, while Ilya and I were
installing Incident at the Museum, or Water Music at the Grand Palais, the fate
of our large installations came up in conversation. Emilia said there was
nowhere to store them and that perhaps it would be better to donate them to
museums. “If we give them away, we give them away,” Ilya and I replied. I was
even pleased by the idea: at least the work would be seen and heard.
A few months ago I wrote to Museum
Wiesbaden and, in December 2025, received the following reply: "The
installation was acquired from Emilia Kabakov in 2001." Whether Ilya knew
the terms of that transaction, I do not know.
In 2008, an authorized copy of Red
Wagon was shown at the Kabakov exhibition at Garage in Moscow. Ilya invited me
to the opening. I went into the wagon and listened to the sound—everything was
working beautifully. When I came out, I walked over to the wall label and saw
Emilia’s name where mine should have been.
I went to find Ilya, but only a few
minutes remained before the opening. When he saw me, the first thing he asked
was whether I had seen Red Wagon and whether everything was all right with the
sound. His question made me think that he did not know about the change in
attribution. I did not manage to speak to him about it then—and I still regret
that.
After that exhibition, the
authorized copy of Red Wagon was transferred to the Hermitage Museum. In 2024,
following my correspondence with the museum, my name was restored to the
attribution of the work.
“…But apart from the music there
was yet one more profound, fatal miscalculation connected with the passage of
the viewer through the installation which I couldn't 'grasp' or recognize at
all. I sat inside the train-car endlessly, I increased and decreased the lights
under the 'painting', I turned the sound up and down and didn't know what to
do. The installation was failing completely, and the correct solution just
wouldn't come
And here I would like completely
definitely, with large printed letters, so-called 'answering to history', to
attest to that mystical (I am not afraid of this word) role that was played in
this case by Volodya Tarasov, my old friend and great musician. There have been
a few such situations when his presence at difficult moments has radically
saved everything, it has served as a powerful catalyst, put everything in its
place.
In the case of the 'Red Wagon' the
following occurred. Volodya had with him, I think by coincidence, a cassette
on which his play was recorded, more precisely, one of the components of his
musical work called 'Dramtheatre'. This was a cycle of Soviet songs of the
1930's and 1940's recorded from old records with the wheezing, scratching of
the needle, etc. that was appropriate for the level of technical reproduction
at that time. But what a remarkable thing: all of these songs of happiness,
love and joy which sounded so false and offended our ears at the time against
the background of the existing horrible reality that surrounded us, today
sound absolutely genuine, with a bewitching power and fascination. It is
impossible to understand what the secret is here.
But as if this weren't enough.
Having sat inside the train-car for a while in a certain pensiveness and
dissipation, Volodya somehow unexpectedly told me to close and lock the front
door of the car through which viewers could enter from the facade via the
platform. Why he said this, how this idea came to him, I neither asked nor
could he explain to me later. (I had the chance to be convinced of his
unbelievable, incomprehensible ability to enter almost instantaneously into
the main conception of other artists, of his friends, but that is a separate
topic.)
And this suggestion put everything
in its place once and for all. The installation 'began to work' like a
well-oiled mechanism, and from that moment on it created the necessary
impression, that which was embedded in its conception.” (Der Rote Wagon.
Museum Wiesbaden, Germany, 1999, p. 42).
This Was Not the Only Case
After the incident with the V-A-C
Foundation, I began to look more closely at the fate and attribution of our
other joint works.
Emilia’s name did not appear in the
original attribution of The Red Pavilion, created for the 1993 Venice Biennale.
Today, however, Thaddaeus Ropac presents the work as a work by Ilya and Emilia
Kabakov.
Ilya Kabakov: Music in The Red Pavilion
“… It is interesting that without
this monologue the pavilion and, in fact, the entire installation simply does
not exist - sound is the most important element of this work.” (Ilya
Kabakov. The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away, Harry N. Abrams Inc.,
Publishers, 1995, p. 206.)
One of the three objects in the
installation Three Songs About the Motherland —“About Love,” shown at the Centre
Pompidou in 1995 with music arranged by me—was sold by Emilia in 2013 to the
collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven under the title Let’s Go Girls!
My music remained, but the title changed, and Emilia Kabakov’s name appeared in
the attribution in place of mine.
Something similar happened with Concert
for a Fly. The 1993 original, with my music, is at the Château d’Oiron. In
the current version offered by Thaddaeus Ropac, Emilia is credited as
co-author, while my music has been removed and replaced with different music.
For me, the issue here is not merely whose name appears on the work: the
context of a work created through a specific collaboration is being changed.
https://www.chateau-oiron.fr/decouvrir/la-collection-curios-mirabilia/ilya-kabakov
https://ropac.net/artworks/10566-ilya-emilia-kabakov-concert-for-a-fly-first-realised-1993/
How “Ilya and Emilia Kabakov” Came About
To understand why these changes
matter so much to me, we need to return to the beginning of Ilya’s American
period. When he moved to New York, he was already well known, financially
independent, and recognized as one of the pioneers of the total installation.
His dream was simple: to devote himself entirely to his art and be distracted
by nothing else.
Emilia took charge of everyday
matters, the organization of exhibitions, sales, banking, and communication
with the outside world. Ilya spoke very little English and therefore could not
conduct business negotiations on his own. In a sense, he got exactly what he
wanted: the freedom to concentrate on his work.
But along with these domestic and
organizational responsibilities, relations with museums, galleries, collectors,
contracts—and, ultimately, the means by which authorship was publicly
recorded—gradually came to be concentrated in one pair of hands. For me, this
is where an important boundary lies between the Ilya I knew in Moscow and
during his first years in the West, and the later emergence of the established
name “Ilya and Emilia Kabakov.”
I myself heard Emilia telling Ilya
that much of what he had made in Moscow was no longer of interest to anyone in
America and that he now had to work for a new audience. I thought she was
wrong: it was precisely the artistic language he had developed in Moscow that
made Kabakov Kabakov. At the same time, I do not presume to judge what took
place in every particular decision between them. There is no doubt that Emilia
played an enormous role in organizing Ilya’s life, his exhibitions, and the
international projects of his American period. But an organizational role and
authorship of a work are not the same thing. I can speak, above all, about what
I witnessed myself and about what happened to works in whose creation I
personally took part.
In a 2017 interview with Ilya and
Emilia in the British magazine Apollo, the principle of joint authorship was
formulated as follows: “With the exception of painting, Emilia has shared the
credit for all of Ilya’s projects since 1997.” Our last joint work dates from
1996.
From Authorship to Legacy
Gradually, for me, this conflict
ceased to be only a dispute over my own name. After Ilya’s death, the question
became broader: what happens to a work when the person managing an artist’s
legacy gains the ability to alter its components, title, attribution, or to
create new versions?
In a conversation with Robert Storr
in October 2025, Emilia spoke about Ilya Kabakov’s Where Is Our Place? (2003):
“It was an installation of ten rooms. I divided it into four parts: I sold
three and kept one for myself.” In the same interview, speaking about her plans
for the future, she described her aim as realizing projects that had never been
carried out: “…to create something based on his work.”
For me, these words raise a
different question—not about the authorship of the works I made with Ilya, but
about the limits of what may be done with an artist’s legacy. Can a work still
be regarded as the same work if its components, sound, title, and authorship
are changed? For me, this is the question that connects the fate of our joint
works to the broader fate of Kabakov’s legacy.
In the same interview, Emilia
described how her name first came to appear alongside Ilya’s. According to her,
she did not consider herself an artist, and the immediate occasion was a
conversation with Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, who insisted that her
contribution should be reflected in the authorship. It is no longer possible to
verify the details of that episode with the people involved. What matters more
to me is this: whatever the explanation for the emergence of dual authorship,
it does not alter the dates on which the works were created or their original
attribution.
Into the Future
There are two books to which I
would draw the reader’s attention: Catalogue by Mikhail Epstein and Ilya
Kabakov, and Two Walks with Ilya Kabakov by Yuri Rost—conversations with Ilya
by two people who had been close to him since his Moscow years.
Knowing Ilya as I did, I read both
books almost as revelations or confessions: in them, he seems to peer out from
behind the “fence” of his own art and try to understand the world that had long
remained on the other side.
In these conversations with Epstein
and Rost, Ilya, for me, returns to himself—to the man we knew. We remember his
intelligence, his humor, and, of course, his work. For me, Kabakov’s strongest
period was his Moscow years and the years that followed, up to the early 2000s.
During that time he created an enormous body of paintings, drawings, albums,
installations, and analytical and philosophical texts.
Whatever course the future history
of his legacy may take, all of this has already made Ilya Kabakov part of the
history of art under the name ILYA KABAKOV.
He was taken into the future…
https://imwerden.de/pdf/kabakov_epstein_katalog_2010__izd.pdf
https://iskusstvo-info.ru/dve-progulki/
—
What installations there are all around us, my dear friend Ilyusha! Do you
remember how we made our way from my house at Chistye Prudy to your studio on
Sretensky Boulevard? And how, twenty-five years later, we traveled again—this
time on Long Island in America—from your studio to your house (which, actually,
are in the same place), where Emilia was waiting for us with lunch. Amazing,
isn’t it?
— No.
— No?
— Very good, Yura.
— Wonderful, wonderful!
Pranešimai
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