Kabakov's Workshop. From the Album 'Actors' 1996

Viktor Pivovarov made ‘Kabakov’s Workshop’ with what looks like watercolor or gouache, maybe even ink. You can see that the application is quite thin, allowing the white of the paper to come through. It’s like he’s letting us in on the secret of how it’s made, you know? There’s something beautifully awkward about the way the figures are arranged, as if they’re all in their own little worlds. Look at the textures—the scratchy lines of the wood grain on the floor, the smooth skin of the bald man smoking a cigarette. It’s all rendered with such care and attention to detail. It reminds me a bit of Philip Guston's later work, where he embraced a more cartoonish style to deal with serious themes. Pivovarov is doing something similar here, using a playful visual language to explore the complexities of artistic identity and community. The artist seems to be reminding us that art is always in conversation with itself, full of echoes and reverberations across time and space.