mixed media

June 15 - July 10, 2000

69th Regiment Armory
Lexington Avenue at 26th Street

The Palace of Projects was a spiraling architectural structure 40 feet high and 80 feet in diameter. The nautilus-shaped Palace was constructed of a wood frame covered with stretched, white translucent fabric. Visitors walked through the Palace to explore over 65 individual "projects" that provided entertaining and engaging suggestions for improving oneself and the world. The Palace of Projects was an archive of utopian ideas and stories told by fictional Soviet citizens. The "projects" included maquettes, paintings, and writings that proposed remedies for the challenges of daily life and suggestions for personal growth and improvement.

Artist Bio
Ilya Kabakov (b. 1933) is one of the most compelling and influential artists to emerge from the former Soviet Union. He has been described as the "father of Moscow conceptualism." His critically acclaimed projects include a public toilet stall occupied by an imaginary destitute family (The Toilet, Documenta, Kassel, 1992), a forgotten, derelict schoolhouse (School No. 6, Marfa, Texas 1993), a museum ruined by a burst water main (Incident at the Museum, or Water Music, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, 1994), and corridors of dilapidated hospital rooms (Treatment with Memories, Whitney Biennial, New York, 1997). His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the 1995 Venice Biennale, and the 1997 Münster Sculpture Project.

Kabakov's success is all the more remarkable given the political conditions under which he spent the first three decades of his artistic life. Under the Soviet regime, where he was labeled a "non-conformist," Kabakov was denied even a single exhibition in Moscow's officially sanctioned museums and galleries. The Palace of Projects is not only Kabakov's most ambitious installation to date but is also his first joint project with his wife Emilia. Ilya and Emilia Kabakov now live in New York.

Sponsorship
The New York exhibition of The Palace of Projects was sponsored by Bloomberg with additional major support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Melissa Schiff Soros and Robert Soros, and The Silverweed Foundation.

Originally commissioned by ArtAngel in London for the city's historic Roundhouse, The Palace of Projects was also shown at the Reina Sofia's Crystal Palace in Madrid. The Public Art Fund's New York exhibition placed the work in an equally important setting: the 69th Regiment Armory, home to the Fighting 69th Regiment and a historic military landmark which is still in use today as a military training facility.