The Swastika and the Pentagon
2006
Book, 192 p, language: Russian, publisher: Ad Marginem, ISBN: 5911030039.
Materials: ink, paper
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2029/580).
Literary synopsis Among other literary works of Paul Pepperstein - *Dictionary of the Moscow conceptual school*, a book of poems *The great defeat and a great vacation*, "psychedelic" Detective *The Swastika and the Pentagon*, a collection of horror stories, war stories and other illustrations to the latter two books were exhibited at the exhibition *The Pentagon*, held in 2006 in the gallery Regina. Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice ''Pavel Pepperstein is capable of very subtle graphic work, inventive installations and even conceptualist erotica captured on film. Pepperstein writes novels – from the vast fantasy epic *The Mythogenic Love of Castes* (with S. Anufriev) to the exquisite refinement of his detective novel *The Swastika and the Pentagon* – and performs rap. But for Pepperstein both fine art and literature are only instruments of investigative activity. It is no coincidence that the association of authors from the Young Conceptualists group he founded in the 1990s adopted the emphatically bureaucratic- scientific title *Inspection Medical Hermeneutics*. Pepperstein is interested in everything – psychoanalysis (he is writing his own version of *The Interpretation of Dreams*) and Hollywood movies, the 'collective unconscious' of Soviet ideology and the philosophy of Moscow Conceptualism, the schizoanalysis of Deleuze-Guattari and Castaneda, Orthodoxy and Zen Buddhism, classical literature and contemporary youth culture. (..) The utopian future seen in the landscapes the artist has recently drawn with abandon seem appealing just because this future is profoundly domesticated and elements of diverse, highly influential and menacing ideologies appear homely, familiar as souvenirs from distant lands displayed in someone's apartment.'' - Irina Kulik [Russian Pavilion "Victory Over The Future"](http://www.russian-pavilion.info/eng/pepperstein.html) [Novel website](http://admarginem.ru/books/1478)
Authorship: Artist Author.
Creative Strategy: Artwork-Novel Parallel Lives.
Genre: Detectives.
Publishing: Publishing House.
Theme: War.
