Ilya & Emilia Kabakov. The Kabakovs and the Avant-Gardes continues the path the Spazio -1 has set for itself, and comes right after the exhibition dedicated to Italian artist Giulio Paolini (September 2015) and the themed exhibition Sulla Croce (March 2016). This new project stems from a personal relationship that grew many years ago between the collectors Giancarlo and Danna Olgiati and the two artists, for whom three significant works were already represented in Spazio -1 in 2012. As always, this new exhibition will be accompanied by a new installation of the Collezione Olgiati including works never before seen.

The exhibition relates seven works by the two great Russian artists with 26 paintings and drawings of the early 20^th century historical avant-gardes in the Collection: from Russian Cubo-Futurism to Suprematism and Constructivism, by way of Italian Futurism and European Abstraction, Spazio -1 offers a unique intellectual conversation. Visitors will be able to view five large-scale paintings, a sculpture, and an installation by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, alongside some of the greatest names of the historical avant-gardes, including Russian artists Malevic, Kandinsky, and Rodchenko, Italian Futurist artists Balla, Boccioni, and Severini, and European Abstract artists Léger and Schwitters.
The scenography, conceived specially by Ilya Kabakov for MASI Lugano, is a remarkable tribute to art history by the artist, with which he dialogues relentlessly, and in particular to the Collezione Olgiati, with which he shares specific choices and comprehensive visions. The Kabakovs’ works will be displayed all around the walls of Spazio -1, while the paintings of the historical avantgardes will be mounted on temporary walls placed diagonally in the central area of the exhibition space; these walls will form a grid occupied at the centre by a cross-like structure that is clearly an homage to Suprematism. Paintings that represent European Abstract Art’s finest output are thus englobed in an installation that is the work of one of the most famous names in contemporary art.
Beyond any chronological or genre-based division, the exhibition creates a temporal short circuit, an important synthesis that tells of art and history, of the great social and cultural systems of the past century, and of the successive fragmentation of our complex present.

Catalogue
The Kabakovs and the Avant-Gardes catalogue includes a critical essay by Robert Storr, curator of the New York MoMA from 1990 to 2000, and curator of the Venice Biennale in 2007, as well as a text by the Italian art critic Ada Masoero, an interview of the Olgiatis, and colour reproductions of the entire works on display.