An exhibition area at an Austrian up to date artwork museum was broken on Saturday, December 7, in an obvious act of vandalism focusing on a feminist artwork set up by Nadya Tolokonnikova, the founding father of the Russian activist and efficiency artwork group Pussy Riot.
The set up, a set of balaclava-clad purple mannequins in punk platform black boots titled “Pussy Riot Sex Dolls,” is a part of Nadya Tolokonnikova’s exhibition RAGE on the OK Heart for Up to date Artwork in Linz, Austria (OK Linz). Photos reviewed by Hyperallergic present a shattered glass door on the entrance of a former Marienkapelle, a long-deconsecrated chapel that the museum makes use of as an exhibition area.
OK Liz described the incident as “an act of violence” in an Instagram publish. The museum stated a stone was used to destroy each the door and glass ground of the exhibition. No surveillance footage was captured and there aren’t any witnesses of the suspected particular person or people, Tolokonnikova informed Hyperallergic.
OK Linz has not but replied to Hyperallergic’s request for remark.
Glass apparently from a shattered door of the deconsecrated chapel turned exhibition area the place the mannequins are displayed
Whereas the paintings was unscathed other than a couple of fragments of glass that landed on the dolls, Tolokonnikova, who lives in geographic anonymity as a result of she is on a Russian needed checklist, informed Hyperallergic in an interview that the incident seems to not be a “random act,” however somewhat a “fundamentalist act against feminist symbols.”
The mannequins, the artist stated, are second-hand intercourse dolls she bought on Fb Market and dressed to duplicate Pussy Riot members.
“I placed the dolls in the chapel of the Holy Virgin because I believe feminists are sacred, and I’m convinced that the Virgin Mary is a feminist too,” Tolokonnikova stated in a press release.
The exhibition’s title comes from a 2021 Pussy Riot music calling for the discharge of political prisoners, together with the opposition chief Alexei Navalny, who died in disputed circumstances whereas in jail earlier this yr and whom Tolokonnikova described as a pal.
View of the shattered glass door and ground
The exhibition contains a four-meter-long (~13.2 ft) Damocles sword hanging over guests’ heads, meant to evoke the hazard activists dwell below, and an set up devoted to the efficiency “Putin’s Ashes” (2022) that landed Tolokonnikova on a Russian needed checklist. Tolokonnikova and Pussy Riot’s exhibition additionally contains the brand new Icon sequence, portraits of ladies in balaclavas adorned with Thirteenth-century Slavic church calligraphy.
Russia arrested Tolokonnikova in absentia final November for her function in Pussy Riot’s “Putin’s Ashes” (2022) efficiency, by which she and 11 different balaclava-wearing ladies burnt a picture of Vladimir Putin and bottled ashes of the dictator’s picture. She beforehand was sentenced to 2 years in jail over Pussy Riot’s 2012 anti-Putin feminist punk efficiency protest “Punk Prayer” contained in the Orthodox Christian Christ the Savior Church in Moscow.
The incident at OK Liz occurred the night earlier than the holy day of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary, celebrated on December 8. Earlier this yr at a Linz cathedral, a sculpture included in a present of ladies artists that depicted the Virgin Mary giving beginning, titled “Crowning,” was beheaded after conservatives characterised it as blasphemous resulting from its portrayal of the beginning of Christ, which is taken into account to be a thriller of the religion. The sculpture’s head has not but been recovered.
Tolokonnikova believes that these seemingly reactionary incidents are pushed by a want “to not let artists question or even think about these deeply entrenched roles of feminine religion and broader culture.”
“It’s something that I saw in Russia,” Tolokonnikova informed Hyperallergic. “We do purely symbolic acts of protest, and even for that, we got jailed. It’s troubling to see it happening in Europe.”
Tolokonnikova stated she’s going to depart the glass as is for the rest of the exhibition, which has been prolonged twice due to its reputation and can now shut in June. She stated one of many exhibition’s curators, Michaela Seiser, instructed leaving the remnants of the incident as a “message.”
Tolokonnikova additionally attributes the incident at her exhibition to an increase of right-wing actions globally. In September’s preliminary elections for chancellor, the nation’s Freedom Get together, which has origins in Nazi ideology and is described as Russia-friendly, gained its first nationwide election since World Warfare II.
Since touchdown on Russia’s needed checklist, Tolokonnikova stated she can’t journey to nations which have extradition treaties along with her dwelling nation.
“This kind of art has real-life consequences,” Tolokonnikova stated.