Shrinking Space: The Universal Problem of Finding Housing
By Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov
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The difficulties of the poor and disenfranchised finding housing seems to be an almost universal challenge. In Russian history, there is a definite chapter about this obstacle to a comfortable, safe, and suitable life for persons just wanting to have their own dwelling. Feeling cozy has been at times a blessing hard to obtain indeed.
The Conceptional artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov attempted to explore different angles and perspectives on housing problems using intriguing installations. Their art reminds us that homelessness is much more than not having a roof over your head but often entails experiencing complex emotions of deep alienation, angst and anxiety.
“In Samarkand I lived with my mother, but later when the Leningrad Academy and the school was evacuated to Zagorsk, I lived in the dormitory in Zagorsk. Then I moved to Moscow Art School, and all that time mother kept renting 'corners'. Thus, the homelessness was double: it was not only me, but my mother. I knew that my mother had nothing ever, that she was suffering for the sake of being near me that she had no propiska {Permission to live in Moscow} and that she was living illegally, sleeping in her coat so that if the police came to check, she could say she was merely visiting friends. This is a very sad story described in 'The Album of my Mother.' This leads to an incredible psychic load on a person. Living in the dorms, I fully blended in to the horrible collective of boarding school kid. It's a different animal from a school kid” {Ilya Kabakov, 2009 from the book by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, “Not Everyone Will be Taken into the Future,” London: Tate}.
Therefore, the Russian and American artist Ilya Kabakov explains the narrative behind his installation titled 'Labyrinth, My Mother's Album,' 1990. In a way it explores the homelessness of his mother Bertha Urievna Solodukhina who felt forced to embark upon a painful odyssey just to feed and assist her son who was also in dire straits.
'Labyrinth, My Mother's Album,' by Ilya Kabakov, 1990
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His mother's family had to hide from a pogram against Jews in 1905, lost her parents during the famine years, was deserted by an abusive and unreliable husband but nevertheless retained an indefatigable spirit by struggling on. She did all this without complaints. The late Ilya Kabakov {died in 2023} a Russian artist and dissident who finally fled to America recalled in interviews how as a boy he felt imminence, guilt, and helplessness at being unable to protect his mother from poverty and homelessness. He stated that this lingering feeling never left him. However, in 1959 he managed to buy her a new house in Berdyansnk—and later a much bigger one in 1983.
Much of Kabakov's Conceptual Art can only be understood by examining the complex context of the dramatic social, economic, and cultural consequences of the Russian revolution. One of the most fundamental issues Kabakov confronts is how the Soviet Union failed not only to provide most of their citizens with decent and affordable housing but the devastating psychological impact on the minds of residents in state housing such as 'Kommunalka or 'collective state houses' in terms of lack of privacy, personal freedom and the sense of almost being a captive in some kind of prison. There was never enough space for people to retreat into. Everyone felt he was being watched by someone else. The state collective buildings were so oppressive that most workers in Magnitogorsk preferred to live in dug outs in the ground called 'zemlianki'. At least they preserved their privacy!
Following the revolution of 1917, many wealthy owners of houses or mansions were either executed, evicted or had their buildings taken over by the state. A new decree ordered them to surrender part of the space to poor people who could not obtain affordable accommodation. So wealthy owners had to share their accommodation with new strangers. Each new person was granted 13. 5 square meters in 1926 to live in, but by 1931 this had been reduced to 9 square meters. This was based on a campaign of 'A War against Palaces.' But the demand for such limited accommodation was so huge that terrible situations arose.
What space was originally intended for one family was granted to four or five families. In new state collective buildings called Kommunalka the space had to be divided up again and again into new rooms by new partitions made of either curtains or plywood.
Therefore, this type of accommodation fostered a claustrophobic, cramped and oppressive atmosphere. There was often just one toilet for 85 tenants and only one bathroom or kitchen. In such an atmosphere a lot of conflict and arguments arose between neighbors who would argue over someone taking too long in the toilet or another tenant forgetting to return a borrowed dish or cup.
My wife Svetlana grew up in such a Kommunalka during the 1960's in Moscow. She told me "My family shared accommodation with two alcoholic families who were constantly arguing and fighting with each other. I often heard them shouting loudly. The toilet was in dirty and in terrible condition. We had no bathroom in which to wash. So we went once a week to the banya to wash ourselves. I recall how shocked I was to see all those huge naked women washing themselves with me in a shower. But I was used to living in such conditions. When you have never experienced an alternative way of life you accept this as a normal lifestyle. I can't say my experience was terrible."
When I spoke to other people who grew up in such buildings, they would sometimes state the same. Some even expressed nostalgia. Perhaps it depended on who they shared the kommunalka with. While some families could be very friendly, nice and helpful others might be very unpleasant. Some people just felt like prisoners in such forbidding conditions and dreamed of escaping. They did not feel at home in such places. They sought a house where they could feel free, cozy, and at home.
Even if you have a roof over your head, you can still feel a deep sense of homelessness!
Homelessness, poverty, and famine became part of the history of the Soviet Union. Following the devastating war with Nazi Germany, a staggering 20 million people were left without homes. As late as the 1950's there were still millions of people living in the ruins of buildings, in basements, sheds or dugouts in the ground.
The artists Ilya and Emilie Kabakov, explored through their art how some residents reacted to this feeling of being trapped in terrible housing conditions where they felt there was no way out. For instance, installations were built such as 'Ten Characters' 1995, where pictures are placed on the walls made to resemble Soviet rooms along with a narrative. For example, one character reacts by withdrawing into her dreams {Anna Petrovna has a Dream}, another collects countless objects to make his life more meaningful, and a child climbs into and hides in a closet. {Sitting-in--the Closet Primakov}. Also, a person dreams about escaping through a flight into space where he can find consolation by sharing a world with celestial beings.
The characters are attempting to cope with terrible housing conditions by all kinds of escapism. This escapism which often borders on the absurd is expressed by other installations. For example, in one tongue in cheek narrative and installation advice is given on how to find your own angel. The voice of the storyteller states that you can meet your angel by following laid down instructions: build a special ladder which measures 1100 metres stretching into the sky, climb this ladder for two days and when you reach the top you will inevitably experience extreme conditions and a crisis where you are guaranteed to meet your angel! Kabakov even went to the trouble of building such an installation where a life-sized sculptured man at the top is stretching out his arms to embrace an angel. In smaller miniature sculptures a carved wooden angel is descending to embrace the climber. In another installation, titled 'The Man who flew into Space,' a resident of a Kommunalka builds a catapult which can launch him on a flight out of his building to freedom elsewhere. Another installation which Kabakov erected was of 'The Toilet, 1992', showing a toilet which had been converted into an improvised home with a bed, lights, and some amenities.
'The Toilet, Ilya Kabakov, by 1992'
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The point of the exhibit was to show how every piece of space could be used to live in. Of course, most Russians did not live and do not live in toilets. But a few have! The historian Robert Service wrote that following the collapse of the Soviet Union “Conditions were often dire for those who remained in the armed forces. the state construction of housing blocks had more or less ceased, and in the worst cases, public lavatories were requisitioned as military residences {page 518, “The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century,” by Robert Service, London & New York: Penguin Books, 1997}. Kabakov mentioned how his mother who could not legally rent an apartment {due to the strict resident law of propiska where you can only permanently stay in a place with a special stamp in your passport providing you with the legal right to remain at a particular address. This stamp also gives you the right to work, and to use other public services. The law was introduced in 1932 in Moscow to contain the mass migration of peasants from the countryside who came to Moscow looking for work.} So his mother ended up sleeping in a cot in a disused bathroom, on three chairs in a war invalid's room, and on a trunk in a damp basement.
The terrible arguments and fights which broke out between tenants is depicted by some pictures of pots and pans flying in the air in a surreal way. Indeed, arguments did break out in the kitchen where people threw pots and pans at each other! {i. e, See the work 'Incident in the Corridor near the Kitchen,’ 1989, By Ilya Kabakov.}
Not everyone warms to Kabakov's art. Many spectators are bemused and confounded by his works. Others deride his works as 'just nonsense.' Some of the controversy arises from how people define works of art as well as the main aim of art. Some people think the aim of art is to strive for beauty or reflect a realistic depiction of nature and people.
Ironically, much of Soviet realism strove to portray an idealist depiction of people very remote from reality. But Kabakov argued that the aim of art is not sublime. The aim of art should be to challenge the viewer and make him look at reality in a distinct, different and novel way. This means the spectator has to make an effort to work hard at perceiving things radically.
For example, Kabakov painted a strange picture titled 'The Boy, 1965,' where a boy’s head is conveyed as like a pink balloon which is wholly abstract. The aim of the picture was to challenge the use of classic art and Soviet realism which claimed to be the only way to do art. However, people such as Krushchev would deride such a work as 'childish' and 'crude' and that anyone could paint such a picture.
Other times Kabakov used very cheap and poor materials for painting his pictures to show you don't need high quality materials to make a work of art. So Kabakov's conceptual art represents a kind of continuation of deep philosophy by other means. The aim is to provoke people into deeper thinking and reflection of reality. The world is not one dimensional but much more rewarding, richer and refined than some people presume. Kabakov's art can inspire us to question complacent definitions of what it means to feel at home and fall into homelessness. We need this art to inspire more curiosity. Curiosity does not always kill the cat. On the contrary, the cat might discover a new sense of freedom!
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For further reading:
1. Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, “Not Everyone will be taken into the Future,” Edited by Juliet Bingham, London: Tate, London, 2017. This book is an excellent guide to the art of the Kabakovs' because you have a wide selection of the early and late works as well as the narratives and essays which help you understand the context of their work and why they set out to do it.
2. Orlando Figes, “The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia,” London: Penguin Books, London, 2007. If you want to understand the background to the works of Kabakov's works then Figes offers you a lot of information on the origins, ideas and roots behind the Kommunalka or collective housing which people lived in through memoirs, interviews and archives. Figes is a pleasure to read because he has a flair for storytelling.
3. Robert Service, “The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century,” London: Penguin Books, 1997. This book is packed with information about the past presidents of Russia not to mention some of the main problems which confronted the Russian economy.
4. “Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida,” Edited by Robert Chandler, London: Penguin Books, 2005. It is worth reading the short story by Quandraturin to get a grasp of how claustrophobic some of the cramped conditions of residents were—in those collective state blocks of apartments. In this story, an official hands a tenant a mysterious tube of chemicals where he is asked to rub on the walls of his room to see what will happen as an experiment. Unfortunately, the space in his room expands in a catastrophic way with unanticipated results.