Igor Sacharow-Ross

Igor Sacharow-Ross was born in 1947 in Khabarovsk, USSR, a town near the Chinese border to which his parents had been exiled.

He studied at the Pedagogical University in Khabarovsk, worked there as a lecturer, and then moved to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1971 – without permission from the authorities.

He soon found his way into the nonconformist art scene and secretly organized the first happenings and performances to take place in the USSR. His works, which at that time already included sound objects, were shown at the few exhibitions of unofficial art that he helped organize. They attracted considerable attention, for example at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Arts Club in Washington, DC, the Venice Biennale (1977), as well as the National Museum of Art in Tokyo (1978).

In 1978, Sacharow-Ross was expatriated, arriving in Munich by way of Vienna. From 1979 to 1996, the artist spent extended periods of time working in France, Belgium, Italy, Tanzania, and Israel.

In the 1980s, Sacharow-Ross began working with molecular structures, such as cancer cells and leaf forms. The artist already at that point sought to combine natural science with considerations from the humanities. He works in a variety of media. The projects from the 1980s, which mediate between art and science, are research projects concretized in spatial installations.

Since the 1990s, his projects have become increasingly larger, both in terms of space and content. With the backdrop of the concept of syntopy, he has developed forms of artistic expression for communication spanning various media at the intersection of aesthetics and everyday thinking and acting.

Igor Sacharow-Ross lives and works in Cologne and Munich.

Selected solo exhibitions

1973 Leningrad State University
1977 Institute of Contemporary Art, London; The Arts Club, Washington
1979 University Leuven; Katholische Akademie, Vienna
1981 Centro Culturale S. Giorgeto, Verona
1984 Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Lindau
1985 Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft, Nuremberg
1986 Galerie für Original-Radierung, Munich
1987 Künstlerwerkstatt, Lothringerstraße 13, Munich
1988 Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; Kunstfonds Kunstraum, Bonn
1989 Kunstverein Ludwigsburg; Kunsthalle Innsbruck; Goethe-Institut, Paris
1990 Goethe-Institut, Madrid
1992 Städtische Galerie im Museum Folkwang, Essen
1993 New Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Goethe-Institut, Moscow
1994 Kunstverein Rosenheim; Kunststation St. Peter, Cologne;
University Bonn
1995 Kunstverein Schwerte
1996 The Jerusalem Foundation of Visual Art; Kunstverein Pirmasens
1997 Städtische Galerie Meiningen; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing/Lille
2000 Palais des Nations (UNO), Geneva; Simultanhalle des Museums Ludwig, Cologne
2001 Trinitatiskirche, Cologne; Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg; Municipal Museum, Kaliningrad; Institute PRO ARTE, St. Petersburg; Railway Museum, St. Petersburg; Bundesgartenschau, Potsdam
2002 Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam; Galerie der Bayerischen Landesbank, Munich
2003 State Museum of Architecture, Moscow; Heike Strelow Projektbüro für Kunst und Kultur, Frankfurt am Main
2004 Brotfabrik, Berlin; Derik-Baegert-Gesellschaft, Schloss Ringenberg
2005 National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow
2006 Museum Moderner Kunst Passau; Kunstverein Passau
Stadtgalerie Altötting
2007 Ludwig Museum in the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Deutsches Museum, Bonn; S. Popov Central Museum of Communication, St. Petersburg