‘Dmitri Prigov: Unknown Dante of the XX century’

More than 10 years after his death, the most prolific, witty and profound Russian poet and artist Dmitri Prigov (°1940, Moscow – 2007, Moscow) remains largely unknown in Europe. A dissident and a non-conformist, Dmitri Prigov was at the center of Moscow Conceptualism since the 70s. Alongside with Iliya Kabakov, Erik Bulatov and others, he belonged to the generation of artists who aimed to break down with the grand narratives and iconographies of (Soviet) history, ridiculing and playing with the emptiness of its messages. Best remembered as poet, Prigov was a versatile Dante-like artist combining in his oeuvre graphic art, sculpture, installation, performance and video art, cultural theory and music.

How come the name of Prigov is rarely included in the European canon of the 20th century art history?  Why the works of Dmitri Prigov are so few in the European museum collections and in the large international format exhibitions?  Who is Prigov and what is his place in the pantheon of European artists and intellectuals? These and other questions will be addressed in the discussion with Irina Prokhorova, a literary critic and historian, head of the NLO magazine and publishing house in Moscow, an ardent popularizer of Prigov’s legacy,  Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov, a curator of the exhibition “KOLLEKTSIA! Art contemporain en URSS et en Russie 1950-2000”  in 2016 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris and Elena Sorokina, art historian and curator for High Institute for Fine Arts (HISK).