«Historically a home was always considered a place of shelter.
The meaning and significance of home is the same in all cultures: a place for establishing a calm domestic life, where you can shelter from the external world for a while. During times of social upheaval, the concept of home takes on a sacred meaning, ” says artist Misha Nikatin. At the meeting at Garage, he will show the album The Tale of the Snail Who is Looking for a Home, which he created during a trip in 2022. Working consistently with the heritage of Moscow conceptualism, Misha studies the genre of the conceptual album, as developed by Ilya Kabakov and Viktor Pivovarov in the 1970s. The practice of looking at Ilya Kabakov’s albums in his studio on Sretensky Bulvar was a form initiation into the tight circle of underground artists. As Kabakov specialist Irina Lazebnikova writes, «viewers sat in a semi-circle in front of the artist, who methodically and in a leisurely fashion turned the pages and read the text.» This confidential showing was intimate in nature and created a feeling of complicity and creative unity. Inviting viewers to a similar reading, Misha will explain why he works with this genre and how he created the album.
