(b. 5 November 1940)
A native Muscovite, Prigov studied in the sculpture department of the Moscow Advanced Artistic and Industrial Institute in the early 1960s. From 1966-74 he worked as an architect. He became a member of the Soviet Artists' Union in 1975, the Soviet Writers' Union in 1990, and the Russian PEN Club in 1992. In 1993 he was awarded the Pushkin Prize.
Prigov is the best-known representative of Moscow Conceptualism and is also affiliated with the related Sots-Art school, which arose in Soviet underground and émigré artistic circles in the 1970s. The Symposium's other featured guest this year, writer and illustrator Vladimir Sorokin, is also associated with Sots-Art.
Prigov's
formidable poetic oeuvre (over twenty thousand poems to date) is largely
organized in cycles such as "Scenes from Private and Public Life," "The Fifth
Thousand," "Representatives of Beauty in Russian History and Culture," "Verses
for Every Day," "A Proposal," "Terrorism with a Human Face," "Description of
Objects," "Cockroachomachy," "40 Banal Arguments on Banal Topics," "Obituaries,"
"Apotheosis of a Policeman," "Moscow and the Muscovites," "Play and Ranks,"
"Tears of the Heraldic Soul," "Slogans," "Complete and Decisive Victory," "The
Image of Reagan in Russian Literature," "My Russia," "Where They Tore Off
Mishka's Paw," and "A Hard Childhood." As an graphic, installation, and
performing artist, Prigov has done dozens of exhibitions in Russia, Europe, and
the U.S.
Exhibits by Prigov (from the Guelman Gallery)