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Igor Makarevich Biography
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Born in 1943 in Trialety, Georgia (USSR). Igor Makarevich lives and works in Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow Art School in 1962 and from the Moscow Institute of Cinematography in 1968.
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Igor Makarevich is a well known conceptual artist and was a member of the group “Collective Actions,” (1986-1989), that became famous through their regular performances such as “Traveling to the country”, publications and books.
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Makarevich often creates his works together with his wife Elena Elagina. He uses known codes of visual culture together with different mediums: collage, photography, painting, etching, installation, etc. His favourite hero is old Buratino, a Soviet-era version of Pinocchio, and at the same time a miserable, carnavalesque, portrait of a misguided person who loses himself either in life or foreign texts. Pinocchio appears in this form in a picture cycle from the 90’s dedicated to Kasimir Malevich.
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Following in the steps of many Russian artists who cite the “Black Square,” Makarevich confronts this symbol as an emblem of power of the cultural avant-garde of the 20th century. The “Black Square” was created by Malevich as a “new icon,” as a symbol of the “victory of form over nature,” and exhibited in the “Red Corner”(the corner to the right from the entrance where icons are normally hung in traditional Russian homes) at the exhibition “O,10” (1915.) Makarevich's commentary about this masterpiece rings like a memento mori. The mystical “black”—beginning and end of all forms—is covered with a very concrete white fissure that reveals its perishable materiality.
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Makarevich’s “Black Square” is not only a citation of a famous work, rather a citation of its material presence in time. The cracks and spots themselves are signs of a conceptual statement that deconstructs the “new icon.”
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The works of Makarevich are displayed in the largest museums of Europe and America. His works can be found in the Russian State Museum, in the Tretyakov Gallery, and in private collections world over.
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2008 |
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'Intimate Diaries', Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich |
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2007 |
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Wit Works Woe, VP Studio Architecture. Ad Marginem, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg |
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2006 |
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The Word and the Image, NCCA, Moscow |
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2006 |
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Learning from Moscow - Positions of current art from Moscow, Stadtischen Galerie, Dresden |
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2006 |
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Adventures of the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich, The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg |
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2006 |
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"The Origin of Species," Art in the Age of Social Darwinism, The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art |
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2006 |
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Erase una vez Chernobil, Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona |
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2005 |
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Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Section "ACCOMPLICE" |
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2005 |
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Moscow- Warsaw, State Tretyakov Gallery |
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2005 |
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Mobilografie, House of Photo, Moscow |
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2005 |
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"Withing the limits of the beautiful" (with Elena Elagina). State Tretyakov gallery, Moscow (solo) |
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2005 |
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International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Prague |
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2005 |
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Russian Pop Art, New Tretyakov Gallery |
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2005 |
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Essence of Life- Essence of Art, Ludwig Museum - Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest; The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Russia!, Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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2005 |
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Collage in Russia, the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg |
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2003 |
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"Pagan" (with Elena Elagina). XL Gallery, Moscow (solo) |
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2002 |
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"Iron fly" (with Elena Elagina). XL Gallery, Moscow (solo) |
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2001 |
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"Zooanthropomoses". Art-Moscow Studio, Central House of Artists, Moscow (solo) |
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2001 |
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"In search of lost time". Krings-Ernst Gallery, Cologne (solo) |
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2001 |
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"Evidence of harmony". Yaroslavl Art Museum, Yaroslavl. (solo) |
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