Novikov Igor
Russian-Swiss artist and full member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Igor Novikov began his creative journey as a Sots Art painter. His works are always instantly recognisable. Their signature feature is the presence of stickmen incorporated into either iconic landscape paintings or urban realms; at times these characters also appear as standalone art objects.
Novikov’s artworks are exhibited across Europe and Russia and snatched up at Sotheby’s and Phillips auctions. Igor Novikov ranks 28th among The Art Newspaper Russia’s Top 50 Best-Selling Contemporary Russian Artists. In 2017 and 2019, he was awarded the Gold and Silver Medals of the Russian Academy of Arts, respectively. The artist’s works are in the collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in Budapest, and other museum and private collections worldwide.
Igor Novikov was born in 1961 in the Moldavian Republic, into the family of the artist Alexey Novikov. Having graduated from the Vasily Surikov Moscow State Academic Institute of Art, Igor joined the late Non-Conformist movement at the close of the 1980s, becoming one of the founders of the celebrated Moscow art squat in the Furmanny Lane. After moving to Switzerland in 1990, the artist has been making frequent visits to Russia. From 1990 through 1993, he was working at Le Corbusier’s workshops on the UNESCO scholarship programme.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
1989 — Furmanny Lane, Museum of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
1992 — TIAS (Tokyo International Art Show), Japan
1993 — solo retrospective show, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
1994 — Non-Conformists, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
2008 — Non-Conformists, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, US
2009 — exhibition at the Koller Auction House, Zürich, Switzerland
2010 — exhibition at Nadja Brykina Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland
2014 — exhibition at Klosbach 45 Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland
2015 — 3rd Interregional Academic Exhibition Red Gate/Against the Current, M’ARS Center of Contemporary Art, Moscow
2015 — exhibition at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Moscow
2017 — Russian Seasons, Jedlitschka Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland
2017 — Non-Conformists, Shchukin Gallery, Paris, France
2018 — Space of Time, joint exhibition with Tatiana Nazarenko, Ivan Kramskoy Voronezh Oblast Art Museum, Voronezh
2019 — Life as a Metaphor, Museum of St. Petersburg Art of the 20th and 21st Centuries
2020 — Exit, Moscow Museum of Modern Art
