In the last room, Pavel Pepperstein, cofounder of the group Inspection Medical Hermeneutics, is represented by two outstanding series of ink and watercolor drawings. Inspired mainly by illustrations in children’s books, including those by his father Viktor Pivovarov and the protoconceptualist Kabakov, and the tradition of absurdist Soviet literature—Mikhail Bulgakov’s allegorical stories come instantly to mind—Pepperstein’s “Observations” (1984) combine text and image in a comic, almost caricature style, reminiscent of Raymond Pettibon’s text-laden images. This inspiring but seriously undervalued work justifies his status as one of the most talented among the second generation of Moscow Conceptualists.

Broadly speaking, one is tempted to suggest that the movement’s road to recognition by Western audiences resembles the delayed critical acclaim of so many great Soviet writers under Communism. Any attempt however to do proper honor to something—especially when that thing has reached its end of life—is a low-risk and tricky task. From this standpoint, the experience of now viewing the Muscovites at the Schirn Kunsthalle was somewhat equivalent to that of watching Russia’s leaders paying emotional tributes at the funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize–winning author who died this August. “The times, they are a-changin’,” and none too soon. "Total Enlightenment" originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' November 2008 Table of Contents.