In a London gallery "Regina" has opened a personal exhibition of the famous Russian artist Pavel Pepperstein "Of Mordor with love"

In a London gallery "Regina" has opened a personal exhibition of the famous Russian artist Paul Pepperstein « From Mordor with love ».

This exhibition marks a new stage in the artist. The famous enigmatic figurative drawings and paintings, as well as forays into the territory of the media with popular novels and songs in rap, Pepperstein on this show is ready to present their research in the field of alternative political futurology and fantasies related to the history of utopian art, from Kazimir Malevich and ending with Barnett Newman (Barnett Newmann).

Pepperstein was born in 1966 in Moscow, the son of Irina Pivovarova, child writer, and Victor Pivovarov , the famous Russian artist. He grew up in a house where art and literature were synonymous with pop culture. The date of his birth and spoke of many things: he's too young to be in the ranks of the Moscow conceptualists 1970, for which art served as a means to bypass government control over the sphere of art, and his age were in 1980, when the Cold War is rapidly rolling to an end. Paul Pepperstein in his own way saw the nostalgia of a globalized art market for "real" ideological imagery.

As one of the finest portrait painters among the "new Russian contemporary artists, in the last scenes Pepperstein embarks on quest symbols, emblems and official signs that once, long ago, in a distant mythical country of the Cold War helped the artist to find inner peace and outer prosperity. On the surface, these paintings are fun mix of psychedelic folk art 1970: take a look at the Russian wooden dolls and a Christmas tree in the pictures "Matryoshka" and "Christmas Tree" (two paintings in 2010). At the same time they make an attempt to systematically expand the language of abstract painting through the introduction of natural forms - for example, volutes (spiral curl with "eye" in the center, often used in decorative architecture) or the aura of Benjamin, a kind of luminous tape on the edges of the form.

Referring to the "Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien, Pepperstein reminiscent of Mordor, Sauron's foul lair, for possession of a ring which in the novel are fighting the good and evil forces. In the pictures Pepperstein just mix warring characters superpowers of the planet: the Soviet red star («The Dark-Red Star», 2010), the American flag (USA Square, 2010) and the flag of Great Britain (English Square, 2010). Actually, the flag of Mordor is a merger of the National Socialist flag with a white circle on a red background with a borrowed from Malevich's black square, the corner of which grow colored revolutions in the spirit of Robert Smithson (Robert Smithson). Even in the most obvious within the meaning of the painting, "Dying Gangster (2010), where the wounded man identified as" capitalism ", identify him as a" hero "is difficult: the only object that takes the picture stable upright position - that an erect penis is a gangster, topped hat with the words "Russia».

Thus, modern Russia has become the subject of futuristic fantasies Pepperstein, where tensions growing between Islam and Christianity ("The red cross and red crescent 4, 2010) finds uncomfortable alternative aesthetic resolution. By 2224 - the date mentioned in the movie "Black box with a flourish" (2010), the ideological and political contradictions, tearing the country, will be embodied in a triangle, adorned with the signature, which could well be proud of Ian Fleming: From Mordor with Love! (2010).

Paul Pepperstein working with a gallery of "Regina" in 2000. Solo exhibition in Moscow: « Or-Or "(2008), « City of Russia " (2007), "Hypnosis" (2004) and "Battle" (2003). Personal exhibitions in Europe: "Images" at the Museum of Art Basel (2006), "Father and Son", organized during the residence in Pepperstein Kunsthaus Zug, Switzerland (1999-2000). Last year, the work could be seen Pepperstein in the Russian pavilion at the group exhibition Making Worlds in the 53rd Venice Biennale . Work Pepperstein represented in public museums, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, as well as meeting of the Foundation of Art Sammlung Rheingold Art Foundation, Dusseldorf and Deutsche Bank in Berlin.

Exhibition will run until September 2, 2010.

Source: Press Release Gallery Regina »