Gray Notebooks

A mosaic of fiction, poetry, documents, and memoirs by one of the leading figures of Moscow Conceptualism

Gray Notebooks by artist Viktor Pivovarov, one of the leaders of Moscow Conceptualism, is the sequel to his Agent in Love, published by Garage in spring 2016.  It is a mosaic of fiction, poetry, documents, and memoirs that recreates the unique atmosphere of the artist’s postwar childhood, his youth, and the Moscow underground art scene in the 1970s. Pivovarov’s voice is one of many you will hear in Gray Notebooks. It also includes documents written by others, such as poet Igor Kholin’s letters to Pivovarov after the artist emigrated to Prague, and a collection of notes from Pivovarov’s friends (something like contemporary text messages). Pivovarov’s writings include an essay on artist Ilya Kabakov, a play featuring Giorgio Morandi, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh, and a story about Pivovarov’s studio told by a mouse who shares the space.

The book features full-color reproductions of Pivovarov’s best-known painting series (Apartment 22, Knots in the Sky, Still Lives) and will be of interest to the general reader as well as to art historians. Russian-language edition. 

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