1976–1980
Tin can, plaster of satin, wood, paper, typewritten text, ballpoint pen, newspaper, cardboard, felt-tipped pen.
Height 12.5; diameter 8.5

The series in question continues the three-dimensional visual interactive texts, such as Versograms, Telegrams, Calendars, Windows, which the artist started producing in the mid-1970s. Cans, like other works, were meant for an in-crowd of artists, friends and sympathizers. That is why the material of Cans and the procedure for using them in an almost intimate fashion (holding in hands, personally handling them) were literally due to the mode of existence of artistic milieu: frequent personal contacts, dedication of each new work first of all to that circle of friends and to that circle alone. The famous cans of Campbell's Soup by Andy Warhol, though being a direct allusion, could not have been adequately understood, there being no culture of existence as such in the Soviet household culture. This is the idea behind Prigov's Cans: all the textual and the eventive covers their outer surface, with the inner void being pure metaphysical substance, manifesting itself through special notice plates.