Petr Pavlensky

Early life and education

Born in Leningrad in 1984, Pavlensky studied monumental art at the Saint Petersburg Art and Industry Academy. During his fourth year in the Academy, he took additional training at St. Petersburg Pro Arte Foundation for Culture and Arts (ru:Про Арте).

Career

Pavlensky and Oksana Shalygina founded an independent online newspaper Political Propaganda in 2012, which was dedicated to contemporary art in political contexts, "overcoming cultural chauvinism, implemented by the government", feminism and gender equality.

Stitch

Pavlensky first became known for sewing his mouth shut in political protest against the incarceration of members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot. On July 23, 2012, Pavlensky appeared at Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg with his lips sewn up holding a banner that stated, "Action of Pussy Riot was a replica of the famous action of Jesus Christ (Matthew 21:12–13)". Police called an ambulance and sent him for a psychiatric examination; the psychiatrist declared him sane and released him shortly after the incident. The artist stated that he was highlighting the lack of regard for artists in contemporary Russia, saying: "My intention was not to surprise anyone or come up with something unusual. Rather, I felt I had to make a gesture that would accurately reflect my situation."

On November 14, 2012, Reuters published its list of the 98 best photos of the year which included a photograph of Pavlensky with his mouth sutured in support of Pussy Riot.

Carcass

On May 3, 2013, Pavlensky held a political protest against repressive government policies. His art performance was called Carcass. His assistants brought him naked, wrapped in a multilayered cocoon of barbed wire, to the main entrance of the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg. The artist remained silent, lying still in a half-bent position inside the cocoon, and did not react to the actions of others until he was released by the police with the help of the garden clippers. This performance was awarded the Alternative Prize for Russian Activist Art in the category Actions Implemented in Urban Space in 2013.

In her interview with Radio Liberty, Pavlensky's colleague Oksana Shalygina mentioned that a metaphor of the action had its immediate realization in the reality: as soon as the barbed wire was cut off, and the artist was freed from it, the same exact wire wrapped him back in with police, ambulances and numerous field investigators.

Later, Pavlensky made the following comment about his art work:

A series of laws aimed at suppressing civic activism, intimidation of the population, steadily growing number of political prisoners, the laws against NGOs, the 18+ laws, censorship laws, activity of Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, "promotion of homosexuality" laws – all these laws aren't aimed against criminals, but against the people. And at last the Blasphemy law. That is why I organized this action. The human body is naked like a carcass, there is nothing on it except the barbed wire, which by the way was invented for the protection of livestock. These laws like the wire, keep people in individual pens: all this persecution of political activists, "prisoners of May, 6", governmental repressions is the metaphor of the pen with the barbed wire around it. All this has been done in order to turn people into gutless and securely guarded cattle, which can only consume, work, and reproduce.: Dmitry Volchek, "Cultural Diary: On Good Friday», Radio Liberty, May 8, 2013

Fixation

On November 10, 2013, while sitting naked on the stone pavement in front of the Lenin's Mausoleum on the Red Square, Moscow, Pavlensky hammered a large nail through his scrotum affixing it to the stone pavement. His action coincided with the annual Russian Police Day. When the police arrived, they covered him with a blanket and later arrested him. "A naked artist, looking at his testicles nailed to the cobblestone is a metaphor of apathy, political indifference, and fatalism of Russian society," declared Pavlensky in his statement to the media.

Freedom

On February 23, 2014, Pavlensky organized an action called Freedom in support of Maidan and 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. The artist and his friends built an imitation barricade on Tripartite Bridge in Saint Petersburg, burned tires, beat drums, and shouted Maidan slogans. The action was interrupted by Saint Petersburg police who arrested Pavlensky and his colleagues.

On February 25, 2014, Dzerzhinsky Criminal Court stopped the administrative case against Pavlensky and his assistant Yaroslav Gradil (Russian: Ярослав Градиль) on the accusations of hooliganism, and released them from prison. An investigation into Pavlensky's alleged violation of the regulations on political meetings continued. He was charged with vandalism due to the tire burning.

Segregation

On October 19, 2014, Pavlensky cut off his earlobe with a chef's knife while sitting naked on the roof of the infamous Serbsky Center to protest political abuse of psychiatry in Russia.

Lubyanka's burning door

Pavlensky came to the first entrance of the Lubyanka Building, which is the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service on November 9, 2015 at 1:15 a.m. Moscow time, and doused the front door with gasoline and set fire to it with a cigarette lighter. The doors of the building were partially burnt. Pavlensky was detained after 30 seconds without resistance, and charged with debauchery. A few hours after the action, a video appeared on the Internet with an explanation of the meaning of the burning. The action is called "Lubyanka's burning door" according to Pavlensky. The criminal case against Pavlensky was opened on November 9, 2015 under the "vandalism" section of article 214 of the Russian criminal code. On November 10, 2015 in the Tagansky district court, Pavlensky declared: "I want my action to be reclassified to terrorism."

According to gallerist Marat Gelman, the action shows Pavlensky's "obvious symbolism". "The Lubyanka door is the gate of hell, the entrance into the world of absolute evil. And against the backdrop of hellfire is a lonely artist, waiting to be captured ... Pavlensky's figure at the door of the FSB in flames - very important symbol for today's Russia, both political and artistic."

On 8 June 2016, the Moscow criminal court declared Pavlensky guilty and sentenced him to a fine of 500,000 rubles.

On 13 August 2016, Pavlensky gave a lecture in Odessa, Ukraine which ended with the inebriated Ukrainian journalist and screenwriter Vladimir Nestrenko instigating a fight that ended with his stabbing one of two security guards who tried to subdue him. The second of the two security guards suffered a fatal heart attack after the incident.

Projects and actions

Group art exhibitions

In 2012, Pavlensky participated in the alumni and students art exhibition Oculus Two organized by Pro Arte Foundation. In 2013, in front of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, he organized a street art exhibition Ghosts of Identity, which came as a project of his Political Propaganda periodical.

Awards

He was awarded the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in 2016. The Prize was later withdrawn after Pavlensky announced his intention to dedicate it (and its monetary award) to an insurgent group and then explicitly endorsed the use of violence as a valid method to combat government oppression.