Irina Nakhova is one of the key figures of Moscow Conceptual School that formed in the 1970s in the USSR. She is a painter, book illustrator, author of large-scale installations, in which she applies different media and techniques. She is one of the first artists who started creating installations in Russia.
Irina Nakhova was born in Moscow in 1955. She graduated from the Graphic Design Department of the Moscow Institute of Polygraphy in 1978. She worked as a book illustrator until 1986. In the beginning of the 1980s, she created a series of large-scale projects “Rooms” that was one of the first examples of environmental art in contemporary Soviet art. In 2013 Nakhova received the Kandinsky Prize for “Project of the Year”. In 2015, she became the first female artist who represented Russia in its pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2019 she was included in top 10 renowned contemporary Russian artists according to InArt rating. Nakhova has taught contemporary art at Princeton University, Wayne State University, Pittsburg, Carnegie Mellon University, Detroit, the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Salzburg, and in other institutions. Irina Nakhova lives and works in the United States and in Moscow, Russia.
2019 Museum of the Edge. Zimmerli Art Museim. New York. USA
2018 Room No 2. 1984/2018. Tate Modern. London. UK
2017 Battle of the Invalides. The Parallel Programme of the 7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art. pop/off/art gallery. Moscow
2017 Ecological Optics. Irina Nakhova. NCCA. Moscow
2016 Glance. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art. Moscow
2015 The Green Pavilion. Representing Russia in the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Italy
2014 Heaven. CCA Winzavod. Moscow
2012 Renovation. Stella Art Foundation. Moscow
2011 Rooms. Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow
2011 Native Speech. The Elena Berezkina Foundation for Visual Art Support “Era”. Moscow
2010 Irina Nakhova and Pavel Pepperstein: Moscow Partisan Conceptualism. Orel Art UK. London. UK
2009 Disconnected. Open gallery. Moscow
2008 Zone of Non-Distinction. XL Gallery. Moscow
2006 Moscow Installation. Karlsruhe Kunstlerhaus. Karlsruhe. Germany
2005 Artificial Shrubbery and Woman Sitting on the Bank. The State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow
2004 Alert: Code Orange. NCCA. Moscow
2004 We. XL Gallery. Moscow
2003 When Will You Be Home? Wooster College Art Museum. Wooster. Ohio. USA
2003 Nomads of Art. Contemporary Russian Artists in Germany. Central House of Artist. Moscow
2003 Rehearsal. The State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow
2002 Stay with Me. XL Gallery. Moscow
2001 Annunciation. XL Gallery. Moscow
2000 Deposition. Rupertinum, Museum Moderner Kunst. Salzburg. Austria
1999 Room Archaeology. Obscuri Viri. Moscow
1999 Big Red. XL Gallery. Moscow
1998 Showroom: Installation with Big Red. Galerie Eboran. Salzburg. Austria
1997 What I Saw. XL Gallery. Moscow
1996 Papa Needs to Rest. Obscuri Viri Gallery. Moscow
1995 Feast for the Gods. XL Gallery. Moscow
1991 Partial Triumph II. Galeria Berini. Barcelona. Spain
1990 Momentum Mortis. Phyllis Kind Gallery. New York. USA
1989 Partial Triumph I. Vanessa Devereux Gallery. London. UK
2019 There Is a Beginning at the End: the Secret Tintoretto Fraternity. Chiesa di San Fantin. Venice. Italy
2019 Art of Being. NCCA. Moscow
2019 Very Important Message. New Archive of Circulation Art. The State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow
2018 Here and Now. Manege Exhibition Hall. Moscow
2018 Unforgettable Meeting. Victoria Gallery. Samara
2018 Russian Émigré Artists in the New-York – The Real Thing. Harriman Institute. New York. USA
2018 Personal Approach. Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow
2017 In the beginning was the Word. Poet and context. To Lev Rubinstein Anniversary. The Museum of Moscow. Moscow
2017 Man as bird. Images of Journeys. Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel. The Parallel Programme of the 57th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Venice. Italy
2017 Red Horizon. Contemporary Art and Photography in the USSR and Russia, 1960-2010. Columbus Museum of Art. Columbus. USA
2017 Hybris. Ca Foscari. The Parallel Programme of the 57th Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art. Venice. Italy
2016 1991. АRT4 Museum. Moscow
2016 Primary Forces. Nailya Alexander gallery. New York. USA
2016 Always Contemporary. Art of XX-XXI centuries. ROSIZO gallery. Moscow
2016 Moving museum of one painting. I season. Belyaevo gallery. Moscow
2016 Contemporary Russian Artists– participants of the Venice Biennale. Selected works. Manege Exhibition Hall. St. Petersburg
2016 House of Impression. Classics and Contemporaneity of media-art. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art. Moscow
2016 Thinking Pictures: Moscow Conceptual Art in the Dodge Collection. Zimmerli Art Museum. Rutgers University. New Brunswick. USA
2015 Post Pop: East Meets West. Saatchi Gallery. London. UK
2014 Renovation 2. Ekaterina Foundation. Moscow
2013 International Women’s Day. Feminism: from avant-garde to present day. Museum and exhibition centre Worker and Kolhoz woman. Moscow
2011 Hostages of the void. The State Tretyakov gallery. Moscow
2010 ŽEN d’АРТ. Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow
2010 Visual/Conceptual. NCCA. Moscow
2009 Not Toys!? The State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow
2009 Dead Souls. The State Literary Museum. Moscow
2007 I Believe! Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
2006 Territories of Terror: Mythologies and Memories of the GULAG in Contemporary Russian-American Art. Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, USA
2006 Collage in Russia. The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
2005 Accomplices. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
2005 Apartment Exhibitions: Then and Now. National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow
2003–2004 Berlin – Moskau / Moskau – Berlin 1950–2000. Martin-Gropius-Bau. Berlin; State Historical Museum. Moscow
2001 Milano – Europе 2000. Palazzo Triennale. Milan. Italy
2000 Seeing Isn’t Believing – Russian Art Since Glasnost. Lamont Art Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy. New Hampshire
1999 Conceptualist Art: Points of Origins. Queens Museum of Arts. New York. USA
1995 Kunst im verborgenen. Nonkonformisten Russland 1957–1995. Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. Ludwigshafen am Rhein; Documenta-Halle. Kassel; Staatliches Lindenau-Museum. Altenburg; Manege Central Exhibition Hall. Moscow
1995 From Gulag to Glasnost: Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 1956-1986, The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection. Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
1994 Artist instead of An Art Work, or Jump into the Void. Central House of Artist, Moscow
1994 II Cetinjski Bijenale. Cetinje. Montenegro
1993 Adresse provisoire pour I’art contemporain russe. Musée de la Poste. Paris. France
1992 a Mosca… a Mosca… Villa Campoleto, Herculaneum; Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna. Bologna. Italy
1991 MANI Museum – 40 Moskauer Künstler. Karmeliterkloster. Frankfurt am Main. Germany
1990 Sommer Atelier. Messegelände Hannover. Hannover. Germany
1989 The Green Show. Exit Art, New York; Dunlop Art Gallery. Regina. Canada; Mendel Art Gallery. Saskatoon. Canada
1989 Expensive Art (Exhibition of the Avantgardists’ Club). Moscow Palace of Youth. Moscow
1988 Ich lebe – Ich sehe. Kunstmuseum. Bern. Switzerland
1988 Iskunstvo: Moscow-Berlin-Stockholm. Bahnhof Westend. West Berlin. Germany
1987 Representation. Hermitage Amateur Society, Exhibition Hall at 100 Profsoyuznaya. Moscow
1984 XV Exhibition of Young Moscow Artists. Manege Central Exhibition Hall. Moscow
Tate Modern. London. UK
The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection. New Brunswick. USA
The State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow
National Centre for Contemporary Art. Moscow
Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Moscow
The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation. Moscow
