Pavel Pepperstein

This work is in very good overall condition. There is a very narrow area of paint loss along the upper edge of canvas. Two tiny stains are visible in the centre that look like they were part of the artist's process.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Pavel Pepperstein was born in a family of Moscow Conceptualist artist Victor Pivovarov and a children’s book illustrator Irina Pivovarova. He has internalised the world of visual arts and literature from his childhood days and continues to intermingle the two in his works. Creating an oeuvre of paintings, watercolours, drawings, as well as mixed media works, Pepperstein masterfully combines politics with children’s fairy tales, psychedelia with philosophy and art historical themes with Russian folklore. Writing being another successful vocation of Pepperstein’s, the artist often includes suggestive texts in his works, which themselves act like word games at the boundary of theory and “family conversation”.

Pepperstein returned to Moscow after graduating from Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1987. His rare early works, presented in this sale, were experiments that lay successful foundations of his later career. Searching for his own artistic language, Pepperstein explores illustration following the example of Moscow Conceptualists, such as Erik Bulatov, Ilia Kabakov and his father Victor Pivovarov. Pepperstein’s early drawings depict comically sinister creatures caught in Kafkaesque dramas, such as in Illustration Syndrome (Lot 148) and Psychological Studies (Lot 146). Having co-founded Inspection Medical Hermeneutics group upon his return to Moscow, with Sergei Anufriev and Yuri Lieberman, Pepperstein continued to explore philosophical questions of Russian realities after the over-exposure of glasnost and perestroika. His early drawings, such as Capsule (Lot 142) and Unfinished Painting (Lot 141) belong to this period, and look for new meanings in both society and art through psychoanalysis, fantasy and social reality.

The presented lot is one of the works that Pavel Pepperstein made after the fall of the USSR, depicting an emptied Soviet crest. The CIS (The Commonwealth of Independent States) came to replace USSR, and in Russian this word is orthographically similar to the word “snow”. As suggested by the artist, the two words become identical if one follows the ancient Judaic grammar or the language of the ancient Russian Orthodox icons. In this painting, the artist fills the Soviet crest with snow. In characteristically witty play of literary and visual meanings the artist freezes the USSR to make way to CIS, which from the perspective of the year of the work- 1993- was yet another ambiguous abbreviation.

Pepperstein extended the deconstructive ideas of IMH into his independent practice on which he has concentrated since the late nineties. Constructing imaginative utopias on canvas and paper, he calls his genre “psychedelic realism”. Drawing on ideals of historical avant-garde and sci-fi optimism of the sixties, Pepperstein’s humorous fantasies and amusing juxtapositions evoke high ideals at the same time hinting at failure and desolation.