The Center of Cosmic Energy

Ilya Kabakov was born in the USSR in 1933, and immigrated to New York in 1992. He began working with his wife, Emilia, in 1989. The two continue to produce large-scale installations, similar to theatrical mises-en-scenes, that pose provocative questions about the role of individuals in society, connections between spirituality and science and the possibility of utopia. This volume accompanies the exhibition The Center of Cosmic Energy at the Tufts University Art Gallery in Medford, Massachusetts. An introduction by art historian, Jonathan Fineberg, and essays by Tufts Gallery Director, Amy Ingrid Schlegel and Kabakov scholar Matthew Jesse Jackson provide a much-needed contextualization of the Kabakovs’ oeuvre, which is widely considered the most important contemporary work to emerge from the former Soviet Union.