The Evolution of Moscow Conceptualism: From Early Kabakov to Later Pepperstein
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2021.2.588Keywords:
artistic trends in modern art, Moscow conceptualism, Pavel Pepperstein, Medical Hermeneutics Inspection, concept, interpretationAbstract
This article considers the most important strategies, techniques, and concepts that formed in the Moscow artistic environment from the late 1970s until the present day. The author of the article focuses on the creative work of Pavel Pepperstein, an artist and writer who belonged to the group of young conceptualists. The artist adopts some of the conceptual strategies he inherited from his father V. Pivovarov, I. Kabakov, and A. Monastyrsky and develops them in his own manner, thus giving them special characteristics and his own features. The aim of the article is to show and enlarge the context of the artist’s oeuvre by analysing his collaborations with other Moscow conceptualists and social artists, paying special attention to the Medical Hermeneutics Inspection group founded by Pepperstein in 1987 with S. Anufriev and Yu. Leiderman. Apart from visual artistic forms, mainly graphics, installations, and performances, one of the main activities of the group were numerous theoretical treatises that addressed issues of aesthetical, philosophical, and linguistic discourse in conceptual and contemporary art, as well as the relationship between art and its interpretation.
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