Having outlived the demise of the Soviet Union’s socialist Gesamtkunstwerk, recent septuagenarian Ilya Kabakov shows no sign of relinquishing the mantle of celebrated unofficial artist. Engaging the “work” of two fictional artistic personae, Charles Rosenthal and “Ilya Kabakov,” both of whom sought to reconcile representation and abstraction, the real Kabakov seeks a parallel synthesis between aesthetic experimentation and a new social realism. This massive and complex retrospective of 146 monumental paintings, mixed-media objects, and drawings, as well as didactics and wall texts, transforms MOCA's contemporary galleries into a Beaux-Arts museum. The Kabakov-designed catalogue promises engaging essays by Russian art scholars Victor Tupitsyn and Boris Groys.

— Nicole Rudick