The Happiest Man at Ambika P3
27 March–21 April 2013
Two Mountains at Sprovieri
27 March–11 May 2013
www.p3exhibitions.com
www.sprovieri.com
Sprovieri Gallery is proud to announce two exhibitions in London by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, both opening on 27 March 2013: the major installation The Happiest Man at Ambika P3, University of Westminster—jointly presented with Ambika P3—and a solo exhibition of their new paintings and watercolours, Two Mountains, at Sprovieri Gallery.
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov have collaborated over many years to make extraordinary installations—whole environments that fuse elements of the everyday with those of the imagination. With a light touch, they combine references to history, art, literature and philosophy, and often leave the spectator poised between utopia and disenchantment, nostalgia and marvel.
The Happiest Man explores the fragile boundaries between reality and imagination, fact and fiction, life and art. Created and staged in 2000 at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the work is presented for the first time in the UK in the monumental subterranean space of Ambika P3.
In The Happiest Man the audience enters a large constructed cinema where clips are projected featuring rare Russian propaganda films, in colour, of rural idyll from the ’40s and ’50s—scenes of happy people laughing and singing as they work. Unexpectedly, within the cinema, there is also a domestic room, perfect in every detail, where in the mind of the artists lives ‘the happiest man,’ continually watching the films through his window. The character has found a permanent escape from reality—watching enchanting images—but the utopia of this continuous escape also illuminates the disenchantment of daily life.
The work is a poignant yet ironic metaphor of the search for a way to flee from reality; happiness is drawn from fictional films made in some of Russia’s darkest years. The audience can choose to sit in the main cinema or enter the room and become ‘The Happiest Man’—immersed in the illusion, magic and distraction of the scenes that more than fill the domestic environment.
To complement The Happiest Man at Ambika P3, Sprovieri Gallery will present Two Mountains, an exhibition of new paintings and watercolours by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, never previously exhibited.
Each painting represents a mountain and its perfect reflection, as if the artists portrayed the view of a surface of water mirroring the surrounding environment. The subject of the mountain occurs very often in the Kabakovs’ oeuvre and conveys an idea of freedom and cosmic energy. This depiction is inspired by the idea that above us there is an upside world which is exactly like the world we live in. The duplicity of the image also refers to a double reality: the everyday life opposed to a highest world, which is connected with the cosmos. ‘This is a parable about how what we do not know, do not see and are afraid of is in fact, exactly the same and replicates what we do know, do see and are not afraid of.’ (Ilya and Emilia Kabakov)
The Kabakovs have shown their work at Sprovieri Gallery since the gallery opened in 2000. Previous solo shows include The Flying Paintings and Under the Snow (2010), I sleep in the Orchard (2008), The White Cube (2005), Toilet in the Corner (2002), and How to Meet an Angel (2000).
Their work has been shown in such venues as the Museum of Modern Art, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others. They were selected for major international events such as the Venice Biennial (1993, 1995, 2003, 2007), Documenta IX in 1992 and the Whitney Biennial in 1997. In 2014 they will present Monumenta at the Grand Palais, Paris. The Kabakovs live and work in Long Island, New York.
Contact for Press
Kate Burvill, KBPR: kateburvill [at] gmail.com / T +44 7947 754 717
Margherita Molinari: margherita [at] sprovieri.com / T +44 (0)20 7734 2066
Exhibition addresses and dates
The Happiest Man
27 March–21 April 2013
Preview: 26 March, 6:30–8:30pm
Ambika P3
University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road
London NW1 5LS
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–7pm
Saturday–Sunday 12–6pm
Admission free
T +44 (0)20 7911 5876
www.p3exhibitions.com
Two Mountains
27 March–11 May 2013
Preview: 26 March, 4:30–7:30pm
Sprovieri
23 Heddon Street
London W1B 4BQ
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10am–6pm
Admission free
T +44 20 7734 2066
www.sprovieri.com
*Images above:
Top: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Two Mountains #5, 2010. Oil on canvas, 56 x 104.2 cm. Courtesy the artist and Sprovieri, London. Bottom: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, The Happiest Man, 2012. Installation view, HangarBicocca. Photo: Agostino Osio. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca and Sprovieri, London.
