This painting was on display at the exhibition Ultramodern Nihilism in 1998 at the Ludwig Museum, as part of an installation of 30 paintings. The hammer as an object is overloaded with symbolic meanings, especially in case of an ex-Soviet artist. “People who can only handle a hammer see every problem as a nail” – the truism comes to mind at the sight of the painting. Especially as the two objects penetrated by the nail seem to be books, which are now united and made illegible, and thus destroyed, by the nail. At the same time, the hammer and the hand holding it are rendered in such beautifully fine, almost erotic lines that our negative assumptions waver. The arm resembles oriental calligraphies bearing deep philosophical con¬tents, rather than the limb of a barbarous savage creature. The spectator is thus baffled: perhaps this hand does belong to an artist, and it destroys books that deserve such fate. Edzgveradze gives no clear answer, just as his other works are more questions than statements. The goal is to make the spectators think and expand their world view.