(born Dnjepropetrovsk, Ukraine in 1933; lives and works in New York) The Toilet, on the overlap titled, signed, dated in cyrillic script I. Kabakov 2001, graphite and oil on canvas, 205 x 155 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance:
The artist
Galerie Michael Kewenig, Cologne,
Collection Inge and Philip van den Hurk, The Netherlands

The work has been registered with the archive no. 362.

Exhibited:
Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Premio Querini - Furla per l’Arte, 5.5.2001 (with exhibition catalogue)
Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg, 8.8.2002 – 14.9.2002 and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, 22.11.2002–7.1.2003 Ilya Kabakov, Not Everyone will be taken into the Future, Materialien zur Installation, with Emilia Kabakov
The work was part of the installation “Not Everyone will be taken into the Future”, Biennale Venedig 2001

Literature:
Renate Petzinger and Emilia Kabakov (Eds.), Ilya Kabakov, Paintings/ Gemälde 1957 – 2008, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Museum Wiesbaden, published by Kerber, 2008, p. 111, no. 392
Exhibition catalogue Arne Ehman and Dietgard Grimmer (Eds.) with commentary by Ilya Kabakov, interview with Ilya Kabakov and Barbara Wally and Essay by Lóránd Hegyi, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Not Everyone will be taken into the Future, Salzburg, Paris 2002 (ill.)

“A word and an image, both within a field of view, can also be understood as a word and an object in such a field. In the viewer’s consciousness both will naturally be regarded as equal and both can be observed by the viewer in a single field. Even in memory the object appears visually, mirrored, as if seen externally, whilst the viewer’s evaluation is always internal.” (p.18) The apparently architectural drawing of the toilet facilities harks back to the beginnings of Kabakov’s own creative work in the Soviet Union, to the days in which his studio was in the Moscow underground, in the attic of his house. There he painted white canvases which he later inscribed to give the impression of extremely important activity for the benefit of the state examination commissions - the list for the cleaning service, rubbish collection,…. the legitimation for his own private activities. Even the works and installations which Kabakov created from the mid-1980s onwards are reminiscent of the collapse of the socialist ideal, whilst still maintaining the perspective of a concept of universalization.
The design sketch for the toilet is constructed over a graphite grid drawn onto a white canvas. The edges of the architectural design displays the various views from inside and outside, as well as the plan, the centre is dominated by the drawing which, at first view, appears to have been drawn in perspective. When more closely examined, however, lines which should be running parallel collapse, angles are squeezed or extended, and in doing so Kabakov succeeds in turning a rigid design into an animated image.
“The intention […] must be withheld from the realization; it almost delights in not being realized and remaining a possibility. That is obviously the crux in the relationship between the consciousness and the finished product. Let it fail to realize the intention, let it be bad, awkward and completely worthless. In return my consciousness is free from this object, I have not slipped in, I can still stand next to it and observe it. Admittedly this leads to a certain discord. I have created the object, but I am able to remain detached from it.” (p. 16)
Ilya Kabakov, Zdenek Felix (Eds.), Der Text als Grundlage des Visuellen, Cologne 2000