Pavel Pepperstein (né Pivovarov; born in 1966, Moscow, Russia) is a Russian artist and writer.
Biography
Pepperstein was born to Irina Pivovarova, an author of children’s books, and Viktor Pivovarov, a well-known painter. From 1985 to 1987, he studied at The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In 1987 he co-founded the experimental group of artists called Inspection Medical Hermeneutics (P.Pepperstein, S. Anufriev, Y.Liederman, V. Fedorov). The ideology of Medical Hermeneutics was the fusion of incompatible descriptive language, from contemporary western philosophy and Orthodox theology, Daoism and Buddhism to the language of psychiatry and pharmacology, which created a completely unique manner of expression.
Since 1989 Pepperstein has been an independent artist, writer, critic, art theorist and rap musician. His work is a continuation of the tradition started by the Moscow Conceptual School. During 1994 he was Visiting Professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany.
His exhibitions include the 53rd Venice Biennial in 2009, in the Russian Pavilion, where his installation Landscapes of the Future was widely acclaimed and received numerous positive reviews from critics.The Daily Telegraph Writing about the Venice Biennale in Süddeutsche Zeitung, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk said he found consolation in the work of Pepperstein, which reminds him of William Blake. In June 2014, Pepperstein was personally invited by the distinguished German curator Kasper König to appear at Manifesta 10, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In October 2014 Pepperstein was invited to take part in a group exhibition Manifest Intention. Drawing in all its forms at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. The exhibition, curated by Beatrice Merz, was entirely dedicated to the leading practitioners of the art of drawing from the last 100 years. Pepperstein’s work also features prominently in a book on contemporary figurative drawing written by Roger Malbert, a senior curator at Hayward Gallery in London. The book, entitled 'Drawing People' and published by Thames and Hudson in April 2015, focuses on contemporary artists for whom drawing is a primary means of expression and who focus on the human subject.
Roger Malbert writes, "Word and image flow from the same pen with a facility and grace that appear peculiarly timeless in the work of Pavel Pepperstein. His drawings hark back to a pre-technological age when handwriting was cultivated as the primary expression of the self, and great illustrators such as Saul Steinberg could invoke a multiplicity of styles with a few lines. In Pepperstein's universe political allegory is couched in the symbolic language of Russian Suprematism of the early twentieth century, an avant-garde so far ahead of its time that a century after its manifestation it still appears to foresee a future at which we may never arrive. Paradoxically, for a figurative artist like Pepperstein, with one foot in children's book illustration and the other in political cartoons, it is Malevich's Black Square (1915), the absolute negation of figurative imagery, that heralds the new order. This would be the mystical 'end of history', when all conflicts are resolved, gangsters no longer rule the roost and justice prevails".Roger Malbert, 'Drawing People, The Human figure in Contemporary Art', Thames & Hudson 2015.
Echoing the attention Malbert pays to word and image in Pepperstein's art, Boris Groys states in After the Big Tsimtsum, "Pavel Pepperstein is quite clearly more than just an artist. He is also a poet, writer, critic, curator and theorist. Above all, however, he is a designer of social spaces".Quoted in 'The Life & Times of Pavel Pepperstein', by Becky Shirwan, Elephant, Issue 11, Summer 2012. The curator Hans Ulrich Obrist calls Pepperstein "one of the most important contemporary artists".Hans Ulrich Obrist, Picasso's Resurrection, Das Magazin, 8 April 2017
And the critic Filipa Ramos has said of Pepperstein, “In his vast body of work, the artist has explored the possibilities of combining linguistics, outlandish experiments, popular narratives, and science fiction in a way that seems to be immune to the ideals and expressive forms of post-perestroika”.
Pepperstein’s art has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including The Louvre in Paris. His paintings, drawings and installations can be found in the Tretyakov State Gallery in Moscow, the Russian State Museum in St Petersburg, the George Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Deutsche Bank Collection and in many public and private collections both in Russia and abroad.
In December 2014, Pepperstein was awarded the Kandinsky Prize, Russia's premier contemporary art award. Pepperstein is a somewhat mythical figure. An intensely private man, he rarely appears in public and has no permanent address or studio, preferring instead an anchoritic lifestyle and nomadic existence.
Pepperstein is also a prominent writer of fiction, known for his wild imagination and unique sense of humour. His magnum opus is «The Mythogenic Love of Castes» (Vol. 1, published in 1999, written in collaboration with Sergei Anufriev, Vol. 2, published in 2002, written by Pepperstein alone), a large-scale psychedelic novel in which the Great Patriotic War is shown through the eyes of permanently hallucinating party organizer Vladimir Dunayev (some of the creations that he encounters in his delirium evidently resemble Mary Poppins, Vinnie the Pooh, Baba Yaga and other characters from children books and folk tales). Pepperstein also published several collections of surrealistic fantasy short stories, including critically acclaimed «War Stories» (2006) and «Spring» (2010).
Selected solo exhibitions 1995 - Project No.3 and Freudian Dreams (with Andrei Monastyrski). Galerie Pastzi-Bott. Cologne, Germany. 1995 - A Game of Tennis (with Ilya Kabakov). Art Gallery of Ontario. Toronto, Canada 1996 - A Game of Tennis (with Ilya Kabakov). Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland 1997 - Portrait of an Old Man. State Russian Museum. St. Petersburg, Russia 1998 - Binoculars and Monoculars. Life and work, Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland 1998 - The Sweet Dark. Obscuri Viri Gallery, Moscow 1999 - Drawings. Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart 1999 - New drawings. Elisabeth Kaufmann, Basel 1999 - The Father and the Son (with Viktor Pivovarov). Kunsthaus Zug. Zug, Swithzerland 2000 - Away from the Labyrinth (with Greenman). Museum of Israel, Jerusalem 2000 - Russian Novel 2000. Regina Gallery, Moscow 2000 - Moses. Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland 2000 - Things are in a Landscape (with Victor Pivovarov). Obscuri Viri, Moscow 2000 - How to meet an Angel (with Ilya Kabakov). Sprovieri Gallery, London 2000 - Two Agents (with Victor Pivovarov). Karmelienkloster, Graz, Austria 2000 - Two Agents (with Victor Pivovarov). Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, Graz, Austria 2001 - Exhibition of One Talk (with Ilya Kabakov and Boris Groys). Kunsthaus Zug, Zug, Switzerland 2001 - The Girl and the Tunnel. Elisabeth Kaufmann, Zürich 2001 - Zeichnungen. Galerie Romain Larivière, Paris 2002 - Traum und Museum. Kunsthaus Zug, Zug, Switzerland 2002 - Political hallucinations. Galerie Kamm, Berlin 2002 - Gods and Monsters. Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, Germany 2002 - America. Galerie Ursula Walbrol, Düsseldorf, Germany 2003 - Flags & Flowers. Sutton Lane, London 2003 - Battles. Regina Gallery, Moscow 2004 - Hypnosis. Sprovieri Gallery, London, UK 2004 - Hypnosis. Regina Gallery, Moscow 2004 - Hypnosis. Galerie Elisabeth Kaufmann, Zurich 2004 - Eyes, little sister is watching you…Galerie Kamm, Berlin 2004 - Dreams, Music and Money. Galerie Iragui, Paris 2005 - Europa. Galerie Ursula Walbroel, Düsseldorf 2005 - Drawings. Artplay Gallery, Moscow 2005 - Riders on the Storm. Ministry of Culture, Düsseldorf 2005 - Riders on the Storm. Sutton Lane Gallery, London 2006 - Landscapes of the Future. Gallerie Kamm, Berlin 2006 - Pentagon. Regina Gallery, Moscow, Russia 2006 - Drawings. Kunstmuseum, Cabinet d’art Graphique, Basel 2007 - Rembrandt. Dmitriy Semenov Gallery, St Petersburg 2007 - City of Russia. Regina Gallery, Moscow 2007 - Landscapes of the Future. Gallery of Modern Art, Vancouver 2007 - Talking Animals. Kaufmann Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland 2008 - Either/Or: National Suprematism as a Project for a New Representative Style for Russia. Regina Gallery. Moscow, Russia 2008 - Objects Above The Sea. Sutton Lane Gallery, London 2009 - A Suprematist Study of Ancient Greek Myths. Galerie Kamm, Berlin 2009 - Either-Or: National Suprematism. Kewenig Galerie, Cologne 2010 - From Mordor With Love. Regina Gallery, London 2010 - Vesna. Artberloga Gallery, Moscow 2011 - Leviathan. Campoli Presti Gallery, Paris 2011 - Landscapes of the Future. Kewenig Galerie, Cologne 2012 - Ophelia. Regina Gallery, London 2013 - Studies of American Suprematism. Galerie Kamm, Berlin 2013 - Murder, She said! Galería Kewenig, Palma de Mallorca 2014 - Debris of the Future. Pace Gallery, London 2014 - Holy Politics. Regina Gallery, Moscow 2015 - The Future enamoured with the Past. Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow 2015 - The Cold Centre of the Sun. Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Saint-Étienne 2016 - Hunters of the marble heads. The Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum, St Petersburg 2016 - Abstract Memories. Kewenig Galerie, Berlin 2017 - The resurrection of Pablo Picasso in the year 3111. Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland 2017 - The secret drawings of Jacqueline Kennedy. The Art Show, Art Dealers Association of America, New York
Group exhibitions
1991
ART BOOK. Riga, Latvia MANI Museum – 40 Moscow artists. Karmelitenkloster. Frankfurt am Main Private employments. 1.0 Gallery, Moscow Mamka-space. Sadovniki Gallery, Moscow
1992
A Mosca…a Mosca. Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy Perspective of Conceptualism. North Carolina Museum of Art, USA Monuments: transformation for the future. ISI Central House of Artists, Moscow
1993
Temporal address of Russian Art. Musée de la Post, Paris Monuments: transformation for the future. ICA, New York Step East. 45th Venice Biennale, Venice Context Kunst 90. Kunstlerhaus Graz, Graz, Austria
1994
Victory and Defeat. Obscuri Viri, Moscow 2nd Cetin Biennale of Modern Art, Cetin, Montenegro Architecture of ideas. Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg
1995
History Personalized: Contemporary Russian Art, 1956-1996. A touring exhibition of the Russian provinces organized by the Open society Institute with the Tsaritsino State Museum-Reserve, Nizhny Novgorod; Samara; Novosibirsk; Perm; Ekaterinburg Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. Collection of Tsaritsino State Museum-Reserve, Mucharnok Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest In Moskau…In Moscau. Badischer Kunsverein, Karlsruhe About Beauty. Regina Gallery, Moscow Dry Water. Bakhchisaray museum-preserve, Bakhchisaray, Crimea How to Draw a Horse (Part 1). Ipodrom, Moscow View on Paris from the new building window. Obscuri Viri, Moscow Kunst im verborgenen. Nonkomformisten Russland 1957-1995. Wilchelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany; Documenta-Halle. Kassel, Germany; Staatliches Lindenau Museum, Altenburg, Germany
1996
How to Draw a Horse (Part 2). Central House of Artists, Moscow Scopes of Interpretations. Russian State Humanitarian University, Moscow
1997
Drawing 3, Pavel Pepperstein and Max Matter. Elisabeth Kaufmann Gallery, Basel Mystical Correct. Galerie Hohenthal and Bergen, Berlin Ecology of Emptiness. Centre of Modern Art, Moscow
1998
Eurorepair. Slavianski Cultural and Historical Centre, Moscow
1999
Crazy Twin. Touring exhibition organized by the Society of Collectors of Contemporary Art, Moscow with Appolonia-European Artistic Interchanges (Strasburg). Various locations: Moscow; Nizhny Novgorod; Samara; Ekaterinburg; Uaron Castle (France)
2000
Neues Moskau. Ifa-Galerie, Berlin
2001