Dmitriy Gutov.

«My Kabakov». Stella Art Gallery, м. 2004, с. 39

The cobweb is cunningly spun, a rare fly will get through it.

The might, intensity and persistence of this weaving hold us enthralled.

What is the power of this art, man?

I do agree with those thinkers who derive Kabakov’s art from one grandiose event: the collapse of the greatest scheme of all history, aimed at reorganizing life on sensible and humane principles.

Such a grandiose event as disappointment in the October revolution (which can be quite accurately dated by 1968) couldn’t fail to find a grand exponent. And it found such an exponent in the person of Kabakov.

What has it got to do with me?

My first realizations contemporized with the beginning of the 1970s and were tinted by this public attitude.

This attitude aroused in me a feeling of juvenile protest, which I happily keep till now.

I was born a little bit too late to share the frustration.

That’s why I sympathize with the generation of Kabakov’s parents.

I sympathize with those, who lived on the bright historical enthusiasm.

August 2004