Pepperstein, Pavel (RU)
Carlsberg Tap E
Pavel Pepperstein
Born 1966 in Moscow, Russia
Lives in Moscow
Pavel Pepperstein's drawings frequently feature elements from Russian folk tales and legends. It's a universe Pepperstein draws on in exploring the intersections between art, literature, politics, and psychoanalysis. His artistic approach derives from Russian conceptual art, and indeed the prominent Russian installation artist Ilya Kabakov was Pepperstein's chief mentor. Pepperstein has consequently become a connecting link between an older generation of Russian conceptual artists and their younger counterparts, and likewise between art from before the fall of the Iron Curtain and that which has emerged since.
In a series of watercolours and acrylics entitled Landscapes of the Future (2005-2007), Pepperstein addresses the relationship between painting and the future. His theory is that, on the one hand, painting can only relate to the past, being a depiction of how something - an external reality or the artist's inner, mental reality - appeared at a particular point in time. But on the other, paintings point towards the future. Since, as material artefacts, they are capable of outliving us, paintings are always painted for the future. Moreover, a painting that depicts a possible future scenario explicitly gestures to the future.
Landscapes of the Future is focused around Pepperstein's self-consciously rigid claim that the future can only be depicted in an abstract form, a claim well exemplified by his pictures, which combine figurative and abstract elements in landscapestyle settings. This combination creates collisions within the painting, for while the figurative elements make the realistic portrayal of the past readily discernible, the picture also contains alien elements that resist decoding. Not only is the abstract depiction of the future not straightforwardly recognizable, it is also independent of us, the viewers, in that the future belongs to the picture and not to us.
Pepperstein articulates an idea of freedom and artistic autonomy that points back
to the situation before the fall of the Iron Curtain, where the official diktat mandated the painting of edifying, figurative works showing joyful workers, and where artists who deviated from this norm were forced to work in secret. The distinction between figurative and abstract art was therefore of crucial political significance, and it is in large measure the absurdity of this compartmentalization that Pavel Pepperstein explores in his art.
-NH
Lives in Moscow
Pavel Pepperstein's drawings frequently feature elements from Russian folk tales and legends. It's a universe Pepperstein draws on in exploring the intersections between art, literature, politics, and psychoanalysis. His artistic approach derives from Russian conceptual art, and indeed the prominent Russian installation artist Ilya Kabakov was Pepperstein's chief mentor. Pepperstein has consequently become a connecting link between an older generation of Russian conceptual artists and their younger counterparts, and likewise between art from before the fall of the Iron Curtain and that which has emerged since.
In a series of watercolours and acrylics entitled Landscapes of the Future (2005-2007), Pepperstein addresses the relationship between painting and the future. His theory is that, on the one hand, painting can only relate to the past, being a depiction of how something - an external reality or the artist's inner, mental reality - appeared at a particular point in time. But on the other, paintings point towards the future. Since, as material artefacts, they are capable of outliving us, paintings are always painted for the future. Moreover, a painting that depicts a possible future scenario explicitly gestures to the future.
Landscapes of the Future is focused around Pepperstein's self-consciously rigid claim that the future can only be depicted in an abstract form, a claim well exemplified by his pictures, which combine figurative and abstract elements in landscapestyle settings. This combination creates collisions within the painting, for while the figurative elements make the realistic portrayal of the past readily discernible, the picture also contains alien elements that resist decoding. Not only is the abstract depiction of the future not straightforwardly recognizable, it is also independent of us, the viewers, in that the future belongs to the picture and not to us.
Pepperstein articulates an idea of freedom and artistic autonomy that points back
to the situation before the fall of the Iron Curtain, where the official diktat mandated the painting of edifying, figurative works showing joyful workers, and where artists who deviated from this norm were forced to work in secret. The distinction between figurative and abstract art was therefore of crucial political significance, and it is in large measure the absurdity of this compartmentalization that Pavel Pepperstein explores in his art.
-NH