Irina Nakhova: Museum on the Edge

The exhibition Irina Nakhova: Museum on the Edge is the first museum retrospective in the United States to represent the artist. Irina Nakhova (born 1955) began working in the 1970s as one of the youngest members of the now well-known “school” of Moscow conceptualism. From 1983 to 1985, she created a new approach to installation art by transforming one of the rooms in her apartment into a “total” work of art in which the viewer becomes an active participant. She played a prominent role in Moscow’s unofficial art world, frequently involved in the actions and performances of the 1980s.

After moving to the United States in 1991, she established herself in the West through multiple exhibitions and installations, without losing her connection to Russia. This exhibition represents Nakhova’s decades-long activities working in both worlds, beginning with her paintings of the 1970s and documentation of her conceptual “Rooms,” through to her most recent interactive installations. 

Nakhova stands apart both from the first generation of Moscow conceptualists and from her younger peers. Unlike many of her colleagues, in whose works the narrative or textual component plays a prominent role, Nakhova draws on the visual and cultural dimensions of her dialogue with art history for the conceptual content of her work.

Nakhova’s lifelong study of artworks in museums has consistently motivated her exploration of daily life. Her highly mediated images connect artifacts from the past with materials grounded in the present to create a deeply ambivalent projection of the past–becoming the future. Using the museum as a space to challenge our habitual perspective on the world outside, Nakhova expands its role in our lives. It becomes a space of freedom—one that allows us to take pleasure in the free contemplation of what she describes as the edge of reality.

Organized by Jane A. Sharp, Research Curator for Soviet Nonconformist Art, and Julia Tulovsky, Curator for Russian and Soviet Nonconformist Art

The exhibition is made possible by the Avenir Foundation Endowment Fund.