Husband and wife duo Ilya and Emilia Kabakov are Russia's best known contemporary artists.

They emerged from the wreckage of the USSR, and its birth and death informs every aspect of their work. It was, according them, the first modern society to disappear - and their work is shot through with the Soviet Union's, ahem, distinctive visual culture. But their art is universal, too, in its humour, melancholy and philosophical reasoning. Next year, you'll be able to discover their drawings, paintings and famous large scale installations at a Tate Modern Installation.

He began life as a children's book illustrator, but over four decades, Ilya Kabakov has produced a wide range of paintings, drawings, installations, and theoretical texts. Since 1992, when he married wis wife Emilia, she has been his partner in art.

In recent years, the Kabakovs have created installations: they are pioneers of "total immersion", creating monumental walk-in spaces. These are uncanny carbon copies of Soviet offices or apartments, for instance, that rose out of a dissatisfaction with the limits of the canvas, and the desire for the viewer to feel the art. The only way to understand the effects of living under the Soviet regime is to be placed inside it. "With a total installation, there is no divide between the artist and the audience. In a way, you create a painting and you allow the viewer inside the painting, which has become three-dimensional instead of one-dimensional," Emilia has said.

Get ready to be immersed in the USSR next autumn.