Dmitry Prigov: The meaning and structure of the world I create

A RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION OF DMITRY PRIGOV'S OEUVRE OPENED ON MAY 16 2014 AT THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY. PRIGOV (1940­2007) WAS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF CONCEPTUAL ART IN MOSCOW, A POET, GRAPHIC ARTIST, SCULPTOR, AND MASTER OF LIVE PERFORMANCE ART - AN ARTIST PAR EXCELLENCE.
THE EXHIBITION, "DMITRY PRIGOV: FROM RENAISSANCE TO CONCEPTUALISM AND BEYOND", IS AN AFFIRMATION OF THE ARTIST'S CONSTANT AND INFINITE CREATIVE PROCESS.
THE"TRETYAKOV GALLERY MAGAZINE" INVITES ITS READERS TO A PRIVATE VIRTUAL TOUR OF THIS EXHIBITION, FEATURING CREATIONS BY A FIGURE WHOSE WORK HAS FOR DECADES ATTRACTED BOTH SINCERE INTEREST AND AMBIGUOUS REACTIONS FROM VIEWERS.

All around Moscow just grows and breathes
It grows all the way to Poland, to Warsaw
To Prague, to Paris, to New York
And everywhere, if you look at it impassively
Moscow is everywhere, her people are everywhere
Where there is no Moscow, there is simply a void

The question of good taste is quite a painful one
Even more so since our people are so very impressionable

Too often the desire to uphold and assert good taste across the board drives people to bitterness
But should we remind ourselves that culture is greatly internally interdependent, just like the environment and our surroundings

Then the urge to hunt down bad taste like a wolf
Turns into a very dangerous inclination, if we do not think of culture for a day or two, but for the long haul

In this endeavour, it is the purest and loftiest of impulses and feelings that prove the most dangerous
I am not even going to mention the tendency to hunt down culture and art
Dmitry Prigov

Here I am quietly standing in line
And in part I think
Now, if you put Pushkin in line
And Lermontov in line
And Blok in line
What would they write about? about happiness!

I struggle with domestic entropy
As the source of divine energy
I conquer imperceptible blind forces
In an untriumphant struggle

I wash dishes three times a day
I wash and polish the floor all over
I create the meaning and structure of the world
On a spot that would seem to be empty

THE DMITRY PRIGOV FOUNDATION
Supported by Natalya and Alexander Bulgakov, Dmitry Borisovich Zimin, Yelena and Alexander Milyaev

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