Ilya Kabakov, a Ukrainian-born artist, has made "total installations" where he combines poetry, music, sculpture to create the entire habitat of fictional characters. This installation piece, entitled "The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment" shows the remains of a room after a man catapulted himself into space with his homemade slingshot. The room is covered with Soviet propaganda posters and emblems glued to the walls. This piece is characteristic of Kabakov's ambivalent mixture of idealism and satire. The lofty dreams of Soviet Russia is contrasted with the commonplace impoverishment of the people. The man is either dreamily idealistic intending to escape his confines or controlled by the propaganda of the state. Another installation entitled "Ten Characters" explores the interaction and idiosyncrasies of characters/people living in cramped, communal communist-style housing. "The Man Who Flew Into His Picture," a part of this installation first exhibited in New York in 1988, is composed of a chair facing a white wall, with a faint grey figure floating in the whiteness, and a lightbulb dangling above the chair. Is the character staring into the wall/canvas trapped inside this whiteness, or discovering a means of escape? This combination of nostalgia and pointed social commentary reflects the complexity of Kabakov's relationship with Communist Russia, having lived there for most of his life. Also, Kabakov's work is always attributed to a fictional artist, possibly a statement quesitoning the ownership of art.
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