Pussy Riots, does that ring a bell? Remember yes, this group of women who defied Putin and the leaden bigotry that he was reigning over his country, by undressing and showing their naked breasts in the middle of a service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, it happened in 2012.
So, scandalous Pussy Riots, there was a time when Veronica was cleaning the face of Christ the martyr and Mary Magdalene was kneeling at the foot of the cross.
It is always the same thing, artists innovate, protest in their own way against what they consider to be obstacles to freedom, to the freedom of expression it is certain, to the humming of the appearance, to the weakening of the critical spirit. No doubt they shock and such is their goal. Indeed, they expect a reaction from the public, from the critics, however the good people laugh at them and then move on! Here is the terrible and dull conclusion of our society of information under all latitudes (but there I confess, I exaggerate) the indifference, the shrug of shoulders, the ephemeral like a volatile memory.Paris is worth a mass, isn’t it!
Raymond Barre, former French Prime Minister (1976-1981), said on another subject, and I quote: « you don’t have lunch with the devil even with a very long spoon »; a well-felt sentence when it comes to dealing with despots.
However, there are beginnings, alerts appear to warn of the danger when a head of state threatens freedom in his own country or the the world peace ! Don’t insult me by giving you examples, you know plenty.
My historical memory, my family memory is anchored in this XXth century which has seen so many of these traumas when so many informed people, diplomats, intellectuals, journalists, some politicians too, warned of the dangers of Russian communism or Hitler ( «same fight », as the CGT trade unionists who are marching, just a stone’s throw away from the black blocks or the shaven heads of the extreme right today in France, would not say!)
We can warn them, but nothing can be done, « Ah, the Cons! » another well-known quote.
Nadya Tolokonnikova Photo Santiago Pagnotta. 2021
The Pussy Riots who had the courage to protest, were not the only ones to defy the Russian power in Moscow. Piotr Pavlenski, an artist, had done the same and had given of his person (if I dare say), by nailing his testicles (you read correctly) on the square of the Kremlin and by sewing his lips, it was in 2013. The mysticism of the Russian soul cannot be said enough! (the latter was expelled from Russia and came to settle in France where he made a name for himself).
Russian constant, one relegates in a camp in Siberia, preferably in the Far East where nothing exists for hundreds of kilometers around except some hordes of wolves in the icy forest as far as the eye can see. This method is still in use. Thus, some opponents are sent to rot and sometimes die. To describe the Russian deportation camps is to enter the circles of Hell. Read Dostoyevsky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the Gulag, or Vasily Grossman and other good Russian authors and there are many of them!
And then of course the expulsion manu militari ! It reminds us of the Inquisition in the past, the choice between burning at the stake and banishment from the country. This is what happened to Solzhenitsyn and what Boris Pasternak was threatened with in 1958 if he went to Stockholm to get his Nobel Prize for Literature.
Ah, dear Vladimir, you are priceless (so to speak), you are indeed a son of the GRU! The totalitarian and criminal culture of the former USSR sticks to your skin. And to think that in France some people, like in Moscow, regret this period of triumphant communism, it is true that in the Senate of Luxembourg in Paris the armchairs are comfortable!
Operation « Putin’s Ashes »
How easy it is to mock or deride, these Pussy Riots who dare. Yes, they dare, and they have the courage to defy the authority of Putin, to put themselves in the way of the ambient and correct conformism, by exhibiting as a supreme act of revolt, their naked breasts. It is Gavroche who exposes himself to the riffles of the soldiers, it is the Liberty by Delacroix who advances on the barricades, it is the Zero and the infinite. It is simply beautiful, it is an emotion of self-giving, the peaceful gift, as Mikhail Sholokhov would have written.
For the action carried out in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 2012, two of these young women activists, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were sentenced to two years in prison in the IK 50 labor camp (otherwise known as the penal colony) in Eastern Siberia in the Krasnoyarsk region, not far from Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.
The Pussy Riot group is not structured according to a certain hierarchy, far from it, it adapts to the circumstances.
Last August, to react against the «special military operation » against Ukraine decided by Putin, 12 Pussy Riots dressed in black suits, nighties and bras and wearing fishnet stockings, their faces hidden under a red hood like the executioner of Bethune, decided on a happening where the portrait of dear Vladimir would be burned. They were Russian, Belorussian or Ukrainian. They launched the operation «Putin’s Ashes ». An impeccable, symbolic, very media-friendly staging, using a second degree of communication (when others in the past and in other latitudes expressed themselves in the first). With a touch of original eroticism, militant female activism and a pinch of magic, this is how the large photograph of dear Vladimir was consumed by the flames.
Pussy Riots in Los Angeles
An exhibition (click) dedicated to the Pussy Riots has just opened in Los Angeles at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard. Thus, many objects recovered from the ashes collected during the operation Putin’s Ashes, are exposed.
Nadya Tolokonnikova (white hood) performing Putin’s Ashes. Courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles.
Here is the presentation made by the Jeffrey Deitch gallery:
Pussy Riot brings its radical performance art to Jeffrey Deitch’s Los Angeles gallery and invites everyone to join their protest against the authoritarian leader of Russia who started the biggest war in Europe since World War II. For the first time, Pussy Riot is showing their political performance art at a gallery in Los Angeles.
Putin’s Ashes was initiated in August 2022 when Pussy Riot burned a 10 x 10 foot portrait of the Russian president, performed rituals and cast spells aimed to chase Putin away. Twelve women participated in the performance. In order to join, women were required to experience acute hatred and resentment toward the Russian president. Most of the participants were either Ukrainian, Belarusian or Russian.
Pussy Riot’s founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova bottled the ashes of the burnt portrait and incorporated them into her objects that are being presented alongside her short art film, Putin’s Ashes, directed, edited and scored by Tolokonnikova.
« While working with artifacts, bottling ashes and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world and he has to be stopped immediately,» says Tolokonnikova.
Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the founding member of Pussy Riot, a global feminist protest art movement. Today, hundreds of people identify as a part of the Pussy Riot community.
In 2012, Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance. Tolokonnikova went through a hunger strike protesting savage prison conditions and ended up being sent far away to a Siberian penal colony, where she managed to maintain her artistic activity and with her prison punk band made a tour around Siberian labor camps. Tolokonnikova published a book Read and riot: Pussy Riot’s guide to activism in 2018.
Tolokonnikova is co-founder of independent news service and media outlet Mediazona. She has spoken before the United States Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament and appeared as herself on season 3 of House of Cards.
Pussy Riot’s Punk-prayer was named by The Guardian among the best art pieces of the 21st century (“feminist, explicitly anti-Putin, protesting the banning of gay pride and the Orthodox church’s support of the president”). The movement has collaborated with Bansky on his Dismaland exhibition, was endorsed by Marina Abramovic and Ai Weiwei and has created an immersive experience at Saatchi Art Gallery in London.
Pussy Riot stands for gender fluidity, inclusivity, matriarchy, love, laughter, decentralization, anarchy and anti-authoritarianism.
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