Igor Makarevich archive

A conceptualist artist and member of Collective Actions group, Igor Makarevich first got involved in Moscow’s underground art scene in the 1970s. He amassed a unique archive of manuscripts by poets and writers associated with Moscow Conceptualism, as well as rare video recordings of art events. AS well as documents autographed by writers and artists such as Genrikh Sapgir, Dmitri Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, Andrei Monastyrsky, the archive includes a copy of the samizdat album To the Studios, compiled and published as a limited edition by artists Vadim Zakharov and George Kiesewalter in 1982.

In November 2016 Garage acquired Makarevich’s photo archive, which comprises 50,000 photographs, including rare shots of the underground art scene from the 1970s to the 1990s and documentation of exhibitions in Russia and abroad. Makarevich started documenting the activities of Collective Actions in 1979 and the archive contains photographs of their actions and private meetings. It also includes portraits of artists, shots of their debut shows, and exhibition views from Moscow’s first art galleries, as well as a vast collection of material on the work of Makarevich and his wife, artist Elena Elagina.

Makarevich’s video archive contains documentation of Russian artists’ group and solo exhibitions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and abroad (Germany, Spain, France, and the Netherlands). These include shows by the Avant-Garde Club, Makarevich and Elena Elagina’s projects Closed Fish Exhibition (1991), The Story of the Writer, and Living on Snow (both 1994), and Collective Actions’ happenings, as well as footage from casual meetings of artists.