Pyotr Pavlensky

Pyotr Pavlensky is a Russian performance artist and political activist, whose creative activities impress anyone, whether by surprising or annoying, but rarely leaving indifferent. He sewed his mouth shut as a political protest against the incarceration of members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot. He nailed his testicles to the stone pavement in front of the Lenin Mausoleum on the Red Square in Moscow, as an allegory of the political apathy of the contemporary Russian society. The fire set in front of the Russian Federal Security Service symbolizes the need for change. He cut his ear lobe as a symbol of the political separation of society between the normal and the sick...

Pyotr's steadfast determination is striking, as an artist whom nothing can prevent from expressing his opinion. His actions aim to a bigger ones in which all participants (police, judges, lawyers, by-passers, witnesses, journalists, critics..) are acting their own part deciding to support or to resist. For him arts and politics are closely linked. Pyotr proclaim the art that undermines the hypocrisy of State that overcame a man. For Pyotr the story of Art - story of the collision of man and power, and if the person is not engaged in politics, then politics possesses someone. The role of an artist - if not serving a government oppressing a society - is to tear off the mask of polite hypocrisy, and to lead people to taking a position, whether to be a free human being or a behaved citizen.