Pussy Riot, Protest Art, and Dissensual Aesthetics
By Rada Georgieva
In March 2012, the arrest of three members of the Russian punk protest art collective Pussy Riot caused an international scandal and mobilized feminist and human rights communities across the globe. The group had a fluctuating membership of approximately eleven women, yet the most famous ones remain the three artists who were put to trial in 2012: Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Pussy Riot was formed after the official announcement that Vladimir Putin would be running for president for the fourth consecutive time. The group staged art actions and performances, which aimed to oppose the concentration of power in Russian society, its rigid and hierarchical configuration and Putin’s political supremacy. Another issue was his strategy of rapprochement to the Orthodox Church, as well as the conservative values promoted by it. Thus, Pussy Riot became a symbol of the white ribbon protests against Putin, while also fostering an intensified public discourse on basic human rights and their violation by the state.
Members of Pussy Riot in January 2012. Photo by Igor Mukhin. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pussy_Riot_by_Igor_Mukhin.jpg.
The rupture of the hegemonic order, enacted by Pussy Riot’s militancy was significantly aided by the provocative aesthetics they chose to embody. They drew on a variety of Russian and Western artistic traditions, which helped Pussy Riot become emblematic of their local context, while also gaining international appeal. The group’s punk aesthetics, in particular, drew on the strategies developed by Riot Grrrl – an international underground feminist movement, which swept the West Coast American alternative music scenes in the nineties – and the Guerilla Girls collective. On the other hand, they were also motivated by a long tradition of Russian dissident culture, for example, the street-art group Voina (War), and the line of artists who had actively opposed Tsarist autocracy before the Revolution. Furthermore, Pussy Riot members wore short dresses, and colourful tights and balaclavas. Russian Suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich in particular inspired their masks – the figures in his early paintings often had vividly coloured faces with no features.
Malevich, "Sportsmen," с. 1928 - 32, oil оп canvas. Leningrad, State Russian Museum. https://musings-on-art.org/malevich-kazimir.
Tolokonikova described the work of Pussy Riot as a ‘civic activity’ acting against the repressions of the political system. Therefore, Jacques Ranciere’s notion of dissensual aesthetics proves valuable in examining Pussy Riot’s methodology – he referred to aesthetics as the intersection between artistic and political practices, where the boundaries between the two are blurred. Hence, it would be reductive to identify Pussy Riot’s artistic output purely as performance art, as the final result was always a multi-media product. Each of Pussy Riot’s performances was photographed and filmed. The visual materials were then edited and supplemented by audio from the performance site, as well as pre-recorded songs. All this was typically complemented by written accounts and interviews to create blog posts, which engaged a much wider audience than the original pre-planned public actions. Hence, Pussy Riot’s work belongs to a postmodern context, re-interpreting the strategies of activist art, and adapting them to their Russian context. Yet, information systems are also taken into account to create a globally recognized protest art.
Pussy Riot, Punk Prayer, 2012. Credits: Mitya Aleshkovsky / TASS.
The performance that caused the governmental reaction resulting in the arrest, and which consequently proved the very lack of human liberties identified by the group, was entitled Punk Prayer, 2012. It was performed at the country’s principal locus of worship – the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Pussy Riot members invaded the sacred area of the amvon – the elevated space in front of the main altar – where women are usually prohibited from entering, unless for cleaning purposes. They jumped around pretending to be staging a punk performance, lay prostrate on the floor imitating a prayer and made the sign of the cross. The Punk Prayer video, however, also includes music adapted from the chorus (Ave Maria) of composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s Vigil, combined with punk lyrics. The refrain alternates between ‘’Virgin Mary, Mother of God, put Putin away, put Putin away, put Putin away’’ and ‘’Virgin Mary, Mother of God, become a feminist, become a feminist, become a feminist’’. In addition, the Virgin is also asked to intercede in the fight against corruption in both church and state.
Appealing to the Virgin Mary operates in the realm of dissensus insofar as it attempts a reversal of normativity and a reconsideration of notions that are most often taken for granted. The figure of the Virgin has a principal role in Orthodox devotion, not only as the mother of God but also as a protector and an intercessor in times of political and social crisis. Pussy Riot appropriated her as a feminist icon, thus creating a rupture in traditional morality. Furthermore, by invading the pulpit area and feminizing it they created a series of metaphoric inversions. Their gestures aimed to demonstrate familiarity with Orthodox rituals of piety and the ways of approaching the Virgin, albeit the provocative and untraditional nature of their prayer. In early 2012, the Russian Patriarch Kirill had controversially sanctioned Putin’s campaign, calling him a ‘’miracle of God’’. It was events like this one that informed Pussy Riot’s resignification of motifs from the Orthodox Christian tradition.
Pussy Riot performing in Red Square, 2012. Credits: Cactusbones/Creative Commons/CC BY NC-SA 2.0.
Pussy Riot members were consequently charged with hooliganism, and performing Punk Prayer out of religious hatred - the closest legally possible charge to that of blasphemy. This triggered the formation of certain ‘groupness’, instigated by the media coverage of the case both in Russia and abroad, which was based around the issue of the state’s appropriation of women’s bodies. The three women on trial were often referred to in diminutive and abusive language, and it was even suggested, that Punk Prayer was conceived by Tolokonnikova’s husband - also an activist artist. Thus, Pussy Riot’s assertion of female subjectivity, as well as the overt expression of their political opinions emphasized the need for change in contemporary Russian society. In Slavoj Zizek’s words, Pussy Riot’s art is thus conceptual in the purest sense: its danger to the state lies in the fact that it embodies an idea. Individuals can easily be imprisoned, unlike the ideas that they embody. The network of support that formed around Pussy Riot speaks the loudest: dissident art can and must serve as a vehicle for sabotaging hegemonic power structures and uniting communities.
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