Today, Moscow Times reports that Nadya Tolokonnikova has been arrested in absentia for her dissident artwork against Putin.
This follows the March 29, 2023, Meduza and AP reports that Nadya Tolokonnikova was added to Russia’s federal wanted list. The law deals specifically with “hurting the religious feelings” of people in Russia. In 2012, Tolokonnikova was charged with “hooliganism”, however the courts wished to broaden their ability to prosecute cases like this, so they created the “religious feelings” law, or the “Pussy Riot Law” as it came to be known.
In response to the arrest, Tolokonnikova states, “Today the clown russian courts arrested me even though I was not there – for my art once again.
Luckily freedom of expression is still allowed and even celebrated in some parts of the world – so this criminal artwork is going to a few museums. I want to show Russia they cannot silence or intimidate me, every time they try to do so, I will only reply with more volume and rage.
First for a special installation of Putin’s Ashes at Dallas Contemporary on Dec 8, the work will be shown on a 100 foot projection wall. The video was shot alongside members of Pussy Riot who came together from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, the US who collectively put their malice and grief into the ritual demise of Putin.
And I am proud to announce my first solo museum show in Europe coming in June of 2024 – exploring Siberia, art collectives Voina and Pussy Riot, Putin’s Ashes, and the purgatory of my life as a criminal artist and activist. Details to be announced in the coming week.”
Putin’s Ashes was originally shown at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles in February 2023, and Container Gallery in June 2023.
Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, a global feminist protest art movement. Today, hundreds of people identify as a part of the Pussy Riot community. She was sentenced in 2012 to 2 years’ imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance. 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 she made a tour around Siberian labor camps. Published a book “Read and riot: Pussy Riot’s guide to activism”.
Co-founder of independent news service and media outlet, Mediazona, she has spoken before the US Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament, 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”), collaborated with Bansky on his “Dismaland” exhibition, endorsed by Marina Abramovic and Ai Weiwei, gallery shows at London’s Saatchi gallery & Jeffrey Deitch’s LA gallery.
Pussy Riot stands for gender fluidity, inclusivity, matriarchy, love, laughter, decentralization, anarchy, and anti-authoritarianism.
