pavel pepperstein

Pavel Pepperstein
Hypnosis
12 December - 17 January 2004

SPROVIERI
27 Heddon Street London W1B 4BJ

Sprovieri is pleased to present the second exhibition of works by Pavel Pepperstein.

Artist’s text:
Hypnosis consists of six episodes of the same situation: girl looks at the male member and under her view the member begins to erect. The visual structure of the film is clear and minimalist, nevertheless the movie represents several different questions, from the psychophysical to the philosophical. One of the questions is: who is the object and who is the subject of hypnosis (the girl or the penis)? Either the girl hypnotises the penis, pushing it to erect (like an Indian snake charmer hypnotising the snake with his pipe) or opposite, the girl is hypnotised by the slow and unstable process of erection having it placed directly in front of her eyes. Each of the six episodes provide different answers to this question.

Male erection as a process has always been invisible, non-spectacular, the “blind spot” of culture. Even in hardcore pornography films we almost never observe this process. During the erection the penis is transferring some information and then starts to look like an inhuman creature or an extraterrestrial being from Star Wars. This creature is tryng to get into contact with a central icon of humanity: the beautiful female face. Each of the female faces provoke associations with different ideas of beauty (renaissance, antiquity, Renoir, fashion channels and so on). However, the male member in the phase between penis and phallus provokes only very uncertain and strange associations with the world of nature, with very archaic mythologies and science fiction.

This film is about the dialogue of two profiles. Sometimes this dialogue looks like seduction, sometimes like investigation, sometimes like meditation or general table talk. Variations of these themes can be continued.