Biography

Igor Makarevich

Igor Makarevich was born in 1943 in the village of Trialeti in the Georgian SSR into a family of architects. From 1955 to 1962 he studied at Moscow Secondary Art School. In 1968 he graduated from the art faculty of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography. From 1968 to 1971 he worked as an artist on Central Television. In 1970 he became a member of the Moscow Branch of the Union of Artists of the USSR and worked in book illustration and theater design. In 1979 he joined Collective Actions.

From 1990 he worked together with his wife, Elena Elagina, and together they had more than 50 solo exhibitions, including at the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna). In 2009 he took part in the main project of the 53rd Venice Biennale.

Igor Makarevich and Elena Elagina’s projects include objects and installations, paintings, works on paper and photographs exploring a number of cross-cutting themes that form the individual mythology of the artists in a way that is sufficiently whimsical and arbitrary to avoid the idea that these quasi-mystical constructions are serious. 
Irina Kulik

Igor Makarevich interview for Artist speaks project (in Russian).