Russian Artist Pavlensky Stripped of Award Over Support for Police Killers

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ed Crowther – July 8, 2016) The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has stripped radical political performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky of the Vaslav Havel prize, awarded to him in May, the Dozhd news website reported Friday. The decision was a result of Pavlensky’s support for the Primorye Partisans, a group recognized as a criminal organization by […]

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[CAUTION: GRAPHIC DETAILS] Rebel Artist Pavlensky Says Inspired By Pussy Riot, Russian Church

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Melanie Bachina – PRAGUE – July 1, 2016) Radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky says his dramatic brand of antiestablishment art was inspired by the shock of seeing fellow students at his art academy imbued with the national “clerical ideology.” But the 32-year-old bad boy of Russia’s suppressed dissident scene says he was only driven to perform […]

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Protecting Russia’s Culture Of Terror

FSB Building file photo

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – The Daily Vertical: Brian Whitmore – March 30, 2016) How an autocratic regime chooses to prosecute its dissidents can be very revealing. Consider the case of performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who was arrested in November for setting fire to the entranceway to Lubyanka, the infamous headquarters of the Federal Security Service in Moscow. By targeting the […]

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