The Artist Speaks. Igor Makarevich

Igor Makarevich is one of the most mysterious figures in the Russian art scene. He has exchanged many masks throughout his career, from a mask molded on his own face to the mask of an elderly Pinocchio in a faded fool’s cap. His characters live in the most uncomfortable conditions, they happen to be imprisoned in wooden boxes and they shine through the ‘fabric’ of other people’s works. Despite feelings of “the inevitability of the end” that permeate their consciousness, and the funeral and memorial paraphernalia in their surroundings, they are surprisingly vibrant and are capable of moving from project to project. Igor Makarevich’s biography, as for many creators of the generation of the 1970s, was for many years divided into official and unofficial sections. As a successful muralist and a book graphic artist, in 1979 Igor Makarevich became a member of the group Collective Action and joined the circle of Moscow conceptualism. Since 1990, he started to collaborate with Elena Elagina. Their joint projects are fascinating narratives where historical facts and documents used as a starting point, are associated with hoax, and the visual images are combined into multi-component installations that can both transform into various spatial configurations and each time acquire a new content.