Arts

Museum Showing Pussy Riot Artwork Targeted in Apparent Vandalism

An exhibition area at an Austrian modern artwork museum was broken on Saturday, December 7, in an obvious act of vandalism focusing on a feminist artwork set up by Nadya Tolokonnikova, the founding father of the Russian activist and efficiency artwork group Pussy Riot.

The set up, a set of balaclava-clad purple mannequins in punk platform black boots titled “Pussy Riot Sex Dolls,” is a part of Nadya Tolokonnikova’s exhibition RAGE on the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Linz, Austria (OK Linz). Images reviewed by Hyperallergic present a shattered glass door on the entrance of a former Marienkapelle, a long-deconsecrated chapel that the museum makes use of as an exhibition area. 

OK Liz described the incident as “an act of violence” in an Instagram put up. The museum stated a stone was used to destroy each the door and glass flooring of the exhibition. No surveillance footage was captured and there are not any witnesses of the suspected particular person or people, Tolokonnikova instructed Hyperallergic

OK Linz has not but replied to Hyperallergic’s request for remark. 

While the paintings was unscathed aside from a number of fragments of glass that landed on the dolls, Tolokonnikova, who lives in geographic anonymity as a result of she is on a Russian wished record, instructed Hyperallergic in an interview that the incident seems to not be a “random act,” however quite a “fundamentalist act against feminist symbols.”

The mannequins, the artist said, are second-hand intercourse dolls she bought on Facebook Marketplace and dressed to copy Pussy Riot members.

“I placed the dolls in the chapel of the Holy Virgin because I believe feminists are sacred, and I’m convinced that the Virgin Mary is a feminist too,” Tolokonnikova stated in a statement

The exhibition’s title comes from a 2021 Pussy Riot song calling for the discharge of political prisoners, together with the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, who died in disputed circumstances whereas in jail earlier this yr and whom Tolokonnikova described as a buddy.

The exhibition incorporates a four-meter-long (~13.2 ft) Damocles sword hanging over guests’ heads, meant to evoke the hazard activists stay underneath, and an set up devoted to the efficiency “Putin’s Ashes” (2022) that landed Tolokonnikova on a Russian wanted list. Tolokonnikova and Pussy Riot’s exhibition additionally consists of the brand new Icon sequence, portraits of girls in balaclavas adorned with 13th-century Slavic church calligraphy. 

Russia arrested Tolokonnikova in absentia final November for her function in Pussy Riot’s “Putin’s Ashes” (2022) efficiency, in which she and 11 different balaclava-wearing ladies burnt a picture of Vladimir Putin and bottled ashes of the dictator’s picture. She beforehand was sentenced to 2 years in jail over Pussy Riot’s 2012 anti-Putin feminist punk efficiency protest “Punk Prayer” contained in the Orthodox Christian Christ the Savior Church in Moscow.

The incident at OK Liz occurred the night earlier than the holy day of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary, celebrated on December 8. Earlier this yr at a Linz cathedral, a sculpture included in a present of girls artists that depicted the Virgin Mary giving beginning, titled “Crowning,” was beheaded after conservatives characterised it as blasphemous as a consequence of its portrayal of the beginning of Christ, which is taken into account to be a thriller of the religion. The sculpture’s head has not but been recovered. 

Tolokonnikova believes that these seemingly reactionary incidents are pushed by a need “to not let artists question or even think about these deeply entrenched roles of feminine religion and broader culture.”

“It’s something that I saw in Russia,” Tolokonnikova instructed Hyperallergic. “We do purely symbolic acts of protest, and even for that, we got jailed. It’s troubling to see it happening in Europe.” 

Tolokonnikova stated she’s going to go away the glass as is for the rest of the exhibition, which has been prolonged twice due to its recognition and can now shut in June. She stated one of many exhibition’s curators, Michaela Seiser, urged leaving the remnants of the incident as a “message.” 

Tolokonnikova additionally attributes the incident at her exhibition to an increase of right-wing actions globally. In September’s preliminary elections for chancellor, the nation’s Freedom Party, which has origins in Nazi ideology and is described as Russia-friendly, gained its first nationwide election since World War II.

Since touchdown on Russia’s wished record, Tolokonnikova stated she can not journey to nations which have extradition treaties along with her residence nation.

“This kind of art has real-life consequences,” Tolokonnikova stated.



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