Igor Baskakov

Catalogue Note:

The work of Igor Baskakov is becoming popular with Russian collectors, following the succes de scandale surrounding the exhibition of his works at the First International Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2005. A number of members of the Putin government have since bought his work, which has only increased his popularity.

Literature:

'Igor Baskakov received a very traditional art training, in portraits, drawing and landscapes, but his work subverts that tradition. He grew up during the period of Perestroika, when the West — its politics, its business, its culture — was just beginning the assault on the USSR.

As a student Baskakov worked with the Union of Soviet Poster Artists, the industrial arts group that had once been one of the most influential manipulators of communist ideology. Baskakov was at the very centre of this maelstrom, working on the side of Communism while experiencing the onslaught of Capitalism. His work subsumes these two opposing ideologies; he takes the advertising logos and slogans of Western multinationals and refashions them in the Soviet propaganda style. The result appears to be a joke at first, like Warhol’s soup cans, but what it says about the end of an empire is still painful for many Russians, and its commentary on the new empire of Capitalism is perhaps not so funny even for the invading Westerners.'

Passport Magazine, Moscow, February issue, 2005

Exhibitions:

Galerie der Tourist-Information, Bad Breisig, Germany, February 2004

Projects at First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, January 2005

Gallery Eleven at the German Centre, Moscow, November 2005