Moscow Partisan Conceptualism

Moscow Partisan Conceptualism - Inina Nakhova

The ‘Moscow Partisan Conceptualism: Irina Nakhova and Pavel Pepperstein’ catalogue was produced for the concurrent exhibition at Orel Art UK. The catalogue comprises of an introduction by Margarita Tupitsyn, followed by a detailed insight into Moscow Partisan Conceptualism by Victor Tupitsyn. The catalogue also features extended conversations between Margarita Tupitsyn and Irina Nakhova, and also between Victor Tupitsyn and Pavel Pepperstein. Biographies of the artists and coloured images are also included in this publication. ‘Like the owl of Minerva, art ‘spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk’. In ‘Living On: Border Lines’, Jacques Derrida comes to the conclusion that ‘the text, visual or lexical, survives only when it is both translatable and untranslatable… even within the bounds of the same language’. Likewise, Moscow Partisan Conceptualism, with its reliance on the existence of ‘blind alleys’, is a guarantee of fidelity to itself. While Irina Nakhova and Pavel Pepperstein are well-known and respected artists in Russia, they can both be included in the ranks of partisans, provided that this political category is extended to aesthetic practices. Nakhova and Pepperstein are opponents of institutionalisation. She interrupted her teaching career in the United States in order to work within the framework of autonomous aesthetic activity, thereby securing a certain degree of independence from the culture industry. He rarely attends his own exhibitions, has no regular address, lives as a nomad, and bears some resemblance to a saboteur-conspirator. Pepperstein’s craving for relocation extends to theoretical reflection, as well as such aesthetic practices as prose, poetry, and music, including rap.’ Margarita Tupitsyn