Petr Pavlensky

Pyotr (or Petr) Andreyevich Pavlensky (Пётр Андреевич Павленский; born 8 March 1984) is a Russian contemporary artist.

He is known for his controversial political art performances, which he calls "events of Subject-Object Art" (previously "events of political art").

His work often involves nudity and self-mutilation.

Pavlensky makes the "mechanics of power" visible, forcing authorities to take part in his events by staging them in areas with heavy police surveillance.

By doing so, "the criminal case becomes one of the layers of the artwork" and the government is "[drawn] into the process of making art".

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).

Pavlensky's "events" are inspired in part by Pussy Riot, as demonstrated in Seam, and follow in the tradition of artists such as Chris Burden, the Viennese Actionists, and Moscow Actionists Oleg Kulik and Alexander Brener, Fluxus and Joseph Beuys.

Seam is said to reference David Wojnarowicz's actions in Rosa von Praunheim's documentary Silence = Death (1990), in which Wojnarowicz had sewn his own lips shut in protest at the Reagan administration's lack of action against the AIDS epidemic.

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.

Pavlensky first became known for sewing his mouth shut at a political art event staged against the incarceration of members of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot.

On 23 July 2012 Pavlensky appeared at Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg with his lips sewn shut, 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 14 November 2012 Reuters published its list of the 98 best photos of the year, which included Seam.

On 3 May 2013 Pavlensky staged a political art event aimed at showing the existence of a person caught inside a repressive legal system.

This event 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 garden clippers.

This performance was awarded the Alternative Prize for Russian Activist Art in the "Actions Implemented in Urban Space" category in 2013.

Pavlensky made the following comment about his artwork: "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."

On 10 November 2013, while sitting naked on the stone pavement in front of Lenin's Mausoleum on the Red Square, Moscow, Pavlensky hammered a large nail through his scrotum, affixing it to the stone pavement.

His political art event 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."

On 23 February 2014 Pavlensky organized an event called Freedom inspired by Maidan and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.

The artist and his friends built an imitation barricade on Tripartite Bridge in Saint Petersburg, burned tires, and beat drums.

The event was interrupted by Saint Petersburg police who arrested Pavlensky and his colleagues.

On 25 February 2014 Dzerzhinsky Criminal Court stopped the administrative case against Pavlensky on the accusations of hooliganism, and released him from custody.

An investigation into Pavlensky's alleged violation of the regulations on political meetings continued.

He was charged with vandalism due to the tire burning.

During the investigation, Pavlensky secretly recorded his interrogation sessions with Pavel Yasman, the main investigating officer, and involved him into a discussion on the nature and meanings of political art.

Yasman then quit his job at Russia’s Investigative Committee and began preparing to become a lawyer in order to defend Pavlensky.

The transcript of their conversations was published as the Dialogues on art in several countries.

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

This art event was an homage to Van Gogh.

Pavlensky came to the first entrance of the Lubyanka Building, which is the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service, on 9 November 2015 at 1:15 a.m. Moscow time, doused the front door with gasoline, and set fire to it with a cigarette lighter.

The doors of the building were partially burnt.

Pavlensky stood and waited to be arrested, was detained after 30 seconds without resistance, and was charged with debauchery.

A few hours after the event, a video appeared on the Internet with an explanation of the meaning of the burning.