Igor Novikov

Igor Novikov was born in 1961 in the Moldavian SSR. Having graduated from the Vasily Surikov Moscow State Academic Institute of Art, he 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.

The artist devised his own visual language which sees classical imagery blend and contend with his trademark sign system. Novikov’s characters are digitised humans turned into conventional pictogram symbols which he uses in his inquests into Russian history in search of interpersonal harmony.