Kantatos, performance

Dmitri Prigov (1940-2007, Moscow, Russia) – poet, essay writer, artist, performer. Started his creative literary and artistic activities in the late 1950s. He is the author of numerous publications in magazines, literary miscellanies, catalogues and anthologies of contemporary poetry, as well as poetry books, essays and prose, issued by Russian and foreign publishing houses, including such as: Text Publishers, New Literary Review (Moscow), Limbach Publishing House (St.Petersburg), Michigan University Press (Chicago), Indiana University Press (Bloomington), Penguin (London), Iron Press (Culler Coats), Reclam Verlag, Oberbaum Verlag, Literarische Colloquium (Berlin), Space Umano (Milan), Triptyque Poesie, LRS-AMGA (Paris) and others. Among the recent poetry books are the following ones: 50 Drops of Blood (Moscow: Argo-Risk, 1994), Emergence of verse after its death (Moscow: Text, 1995), Militiaman and Others (Moscow: Obscuri Viri, 1996), Der Milizionär und die Anderen (Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 1992), Les flauves de la vie (Paris: Triptyque, LRS-AMGA, 1994), Soviet texts – 1979-84 (St.Petersburg: Limbach Publishing House, 1997), Written since 1990 till 1994 (Moscow: NLO, 1998). He conducted a number of solo exhibitions at the Struve Gallery (Chicago), Contemporary Art Center (Saint Louis, 1989), Krings-Ernst Gallerie (Cologne, 1991), DAAD Gallery (Berlin, 1991), Guelman Gallery (Moscow, 1994), Russian Museum (St.Petersburg, 1994), Luedwig Museum (Budapest, 1995), Krings-Ernst Gallerie (Cologne, 1995), Muelcheim Museum (Muelcheim-on-Ruhr, 1995) and others, he also conducted a number of poetry readings and lectures on contemporary Russian art and literature at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia Universities, also at Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Ohio University College and so on (USA), London and Cambridge University colleges (Great Britain), as well as at the Universities of Munich, Frankfurt, Bochum, Bremen, Heidelberg (Germany) and others. Since the midst 1980s Prigov has participated in various festivals of contemporary poetry both in Russia and abroad, including such as: Novostroyka Avant-garde Festival (London, 1988), Festival of Avant-garde Classical Music (Moscow, 1990), Milanopoesia (Milan, 1991), Brighton Art Festival (Bridgetown, 1992), Rotterdam Poetry Festival (Rotterdam, 1993) and so on. In 1984-87 he performed as a vocalist and saxophone player with the group “Middle Russian Hills,” recorded several musical albums and solo poetry readings (MC, CD-format). Since 1989 till 1993 he hosted a program on the radio “Deutsche Welle.” In 1989 a documentary film was made about the poet’s creative activities, it was called “Dmitri Prigov: Poet and Rebel” (Moscow). He acted in the feature films “Taxi Blues”(1990), “Khrustalyov, Get into the Car!”(1995). Prigov participated in more than a hundred group exhibitions both in Russia and abroad. He was a laureate of various prizes, rewards and awards, including the Pushkin Prize for literature (Topfer-Foundation and Russian PEN Club, 1994), German Academy of Art Award (1991), also First Prize winner at the Paper Biennial (Duren, 1994)