Inertia
Pavel Pepperstein & Ivan Razumov
Pepperstein and Razumov know each other by heart as friends and artists. In a close artistic kinship they created a mural installation in the Freud’s Dreams Museum’s corridor: graphics on paper by Razumov and mural drawings by both artists depicting the protagonists of those graphics once again, directly on the blue wall. Reproductions? Repetitions? Extensions? Doppelgängers? Pictorial ghosts?
For sure Razumov and Pepperstein show how images can persevere, as it were. The protagonists on paper continue to exist, even while their days are numbered. They soon will be painted over. But we can recall them in our minds and we might even project them on any mural surface once again, just like the artists did for real by drawing them, then and there.
Just like the other artists participating in this project Razumov and Pepperstein take on through their art a personal, even ethical attitude that might bring to the fore inertia as a positive value of contemporary art. Both artists believe we can not and must not ‘whitewash’ our minds from images and ideas that seem to be over and done with.
Rather, in our times in which it is widely believed we can leave the past behind, we have to recall the ‘patina’ of our history that perseveres to play its role whether we like it or not.
Pavel Pepperstein
Pepperstein once has referred to his mural drawings as bringing to the fore the wall’s ‘patina’: “the deposits of centuries and the romantic dust of which castles, palaces and libraries used to be proud...” (Catalogue Angels of History, Antwerp 2005). In that sense his work as artist, writer and theoretician is focussed on representing, researching and re-creating the ‘mildew’ of our culture.
Pavel Pepperstein (1966 Moscow) co-founded in 1987 the group of ‘Inspection Medical Hermeneutics’ for developing a critical approach to the influence of the West in Russia. These artists intentionally cut themselves off from the outside world in order to preserve a subcultural form of art.
Pepperstein (1966 Moscow) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1985-1987. He participated in numerous international exhibitions such as Berlin-Moskau 1950-2000 at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, 2003 - 26th Sao Paulo Biennial 2004 - Angels of History; Moscow Conceptualism and its Influence at the MuHKA in Antwerp, 2005.
In 2006 Pepperstein published 2 novels of short stories:
‘Swastika & Pentagon’ and ‘War Stories’, both with illustrations by himself and by Ivan Razumov (Ad Marginem publishers, Moscow).
For ‘War Stories’ Pepperstein was on the shortlist for the Andrei Beli price 2006 for Russian Literature.
Ivan Razumov
The oeuvre of fine drawings by Ivan Razumov suggest the atmosphere of 1930's and 1950's book illustrations, which express the peculiar Soviet mentality of those days. At the same time these drawings are unmistakably contemporary. He shows us that mentalities can't be wiped out, they linger on and continue through history.
Ivan Razumov works and lives in Moscow. His drawings have been exhibited at the Academy of Russian Arts, Moscow, the New Academy of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, and in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, during Kabinet in 1997.
Razumov is renowned for his illustrations accompanying publications of Pushkin, Mayakovsky, Basho and Sei-Shenagon. Razumov made illustrations for Pepperstein’s novels ‘Swastika & Pentagon’ and ‘War Stories’ (Ad Marginem publishers, Moscow 2006).
Graphics & mural drawings by Pepperstein & Razumov
corridor Freud’s Dreams Museum
Инерция
Inertia St. Petersburg 2006