Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's imaginary worlds surveyed at Tate Modern and Hirshhorn

A major retrospective of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, titled 'Not Everyone Will Be Taken into the Future,' opened at Tate Modern in London, running through 28 January, while a thematic survey, 'The Utopian Projects,' is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, through 4 March. The exhibitions trace the couple's collaborative career from the 1980s onward, highlighting installations like 'The Toilet' (1992), which featured a fully furnished apartment inside a public lavatory at Documenta 9 in Kassel. Ilya Kabakov, born in Ukraine and raised in Russia, was a leading figure of the Moscow Conceptualists before emigrating to New York in the late 1980s. He began working with Emilia, his future wife, in the early 1990s; they married and signed works jointly from 1997. Their installations often incorporate Soviet-era imagery, text, and absurdist narratives, critiquing ideology and exploring utopian themes rooted in Russian Cosmism. Key works include 'The Man Who Flew into Space from His Apartment' (1985), first shown in the West at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in 1988, and 'School No. 6' (1993) at the Chinati Foundation. The Kabakovs' practice blends painting, installation, and archival elements, creating immersive environments that question reality and memory. The retrospective in Moscow in 2008 marked Ilya's first return in 20 years.