Russian performance artist and political activist Pyotr Pavlensky put his balls where his convictions are on Sunday when he literally nailed his scrotum to the cobble stones of Red Square in Moscow in order to call attention to the pervasive corruption of the nation’s ruling oligarchs, a repressive “police state,” and the apathy of his fellow citizens who refuse to challenge the status quo.
In a singular act of both self-brutalizition and political expression, Pavlensky stripped naked, sat down in the center of the busy square, and pinned himself to the ground with a six-inch nail.
“The performance can be seen as a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of contemporary Russian society,” Pavlensky said in a prepared statement. “As the government turns the country into one big prison, stealing from the people and using the money to grow and enrich the police apparatus and other repressive structures, society is allowing this, and forgetting its numerical advantage, is bringing the triumph of the police state closer by its inaction.”
Pavlensky remained seated motionless as Russian police first covered him with a jacket and then later removed him from the square.
As the Indepedent reports, figures from across the Russian arts world praised the performance, with one calling it “a manifesto of powerlessness”.
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