Ilya Kabakov is a major exponent of Moscow conceptualism, a representative of the later generation of Soviet artists who gained international recognition in the field of art. Kabakov is famous for inventing a new genre – the total installation, in which the work is not an individual object but an entire unified space entered by the viewer. The creative team of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov mythologises the routine everyday communal life of the USSR. The characters in their works are vulnerable romantics and forgotten artist-dreamers living in the humdrum conditions of Soviet life. This retrospective exhibition demonstrates the origin and evolution of the artist’s method on the basis of installations, architectural models, painting and graphic art. The large-scale project is the result of the collaboration of the Hermitage with the Tretyakov Gallery and the Tate Gallery and includes works from art museums and private collections in Russia, Europe and the USA.