Pussy Riot Art, Bio, Ideas

"It's not a question of courage, it's a question of your development. Everything interesting begins with conflict."

1 of 15

Pussy Riot

"A punk is someone who knows how to ask the world uncomfortable questions and does everything possible to make sure the world can't cop out of answering those questions. A punk is a person who lives and breathes astonishment. Astonishing other people and astonishing yourself - that's what art is for us, and without art, life can't exist. It would be too boring."

2 of 15

Pussy Riot

"A punk is always ready to rethink the idea of what is normal, and again, first and foremost, rethink their own ideas. And if you need to use institutions to make sure the world doesn't cop out, we're going to use them."

3 of 15

Pussy Riot

"We use the principle of bad art, bad rhyme and bad music. The idea was as simple as a tank: Everyone has to have an access to music and we talk about it constantly. Anyone can be Pussy Riot."

4 of 15

Pussy Riot

"Punk culture has taught us that to be moderate and restrained is not always the correct choice. When your intuition is telling you that the time has come to leave behind your moderation, do it!"

5 of 15

Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot

"Nothing will change if we prefer to sit around and complain that politics is boring and because it is boring, we don't want to take part in it. It's up to us to reshape what politics is. Take it back. Bring it back to the streets, clubs, bars, parks. Our party isn't over."

6 of 15

Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot

"Art is a realm that helps us fight forces which try to mechanize people, forces which see humans as things that need user instructions and should be placed on the shelf of a store in a shopping mall."

7 of 15

Nadya Tolokonnikova

"The most radical act of rebellion today is to relearn how to dream and to fight for that dream."

8 of 15

Nadya Tolokonnikova

"What pop culture could teach you, as a political activist, is how to be understood by people outside of your community."

9 of 15

Nadya Tolokonnikova

"Maybe some people live according to a pre-prepared plan in the form of school, university, and a career somewhere. That's just not me."

10 of 15

Maria Alyokhina

"The point is it's better to be brave and honest than just a function of this system, which is going to wear itself down in the end. It's important to be consistent."

11 of 15

Maria Alyokhina

"Don't quit what you've started, don't give up, don't walk away. It's important that those aren't just words."

12 of 15

Maria Alyokhina

"At every stage, you have to do everything you can. Everything you feel."

13 of 15

Maria Alyokhina

"Their message is: ideas matter. They are conceptual artists in the noblest sense of the word: artists who embody an Idea. This is why they wear balaclavas: masks of deindividualization, of liberating anonymity. The message of their balaclavas is that it doesn't matter which of them are arrested - they're not individuals, they're an Idea. And this is why they are such a threat: it is easy to imprison individuals, but try to imprison an Idea!"

14 of 15

Slavoj Žižek

"Political art is a way to change the system because it is a way to ask uncomfortable questions and only then can we go forward."

15 of 15

Maria Alyokhina

Summary of Pussy Riot

Within Pussy Riot's public and digital defiance, women in bright balaclavas stand against the dour uniformed men who encapsulate the repression that exists in Russia today. First coming to global attention as a result of their Punk Prayer at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Pussy Riot became a byword for the fearless, subversive and decidedly contemporary activist artistic practice that engaged with the prejudice and corruption of Vladimir Putin's regime, and its religious and bureaucratic enablers.

Made up predominantly of young women and their allies, Pussy Riot's interventions brought attention to the repression of women, dissidents, LGBTQIA+ people and others, and positioned several of its figures to transform harsh prison sentences into public profile and pop-cultural significance.

Accomplishments

Pussy Riot's artistic practice is designed to have real world political impact. In most cases notions of aesthetic quality are superseded by the political resonance of the intervention and/or its potential to enact change and raise awareness. This is an ethos most clearly connected to the punk subculture that inspires them, where skill or technical expertise is subordinate to the idea behind a particular work.
The reception of Pussy Riot's artworks are often very different in the live moment of performance and the later (usually digital) presentation of them to their audience. Whilst many of their performances, protests and visual statements provoke hostility, arrest, or condemnation in the live moment, the documented, edited and broadcast versions that are then disseminated via the internet accrue national and international attention and solidarity.
Despite the public perception of Pussy Riot as a group led by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, they were conceived of and functioned as a leaderless collective until the disbanding of the group in 2014. Today members within Russia occasionally enact interventions, but this is viewed as distinct from the media brand established by its most famous members.
Building on this concept, several of the original founders (including Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina) argue that Pussy Riot is an identity open to use by activists and artists across the world in service of their goals of intersectional feminism. This is best encapsulated by the now famous phrase "Anyone can be Pussy Riot".

Biography of Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot are punk-influenced activists whose protests at religious, political and cultural events highlight their critique of the ruling regime in 21st Century Russia. Despite the anonymity of their multi-coloured balaclavas, several members of the group have been imprisoned, beaten and censured by Vladimir Putin's government and his supporters.

Read full biography

Read artistic legacy

Important Art by Pussy Riot

Artwork Images

Release the Cobblestones (2011)

In November 2011, Pussy Riot blasted out their stylised punk-poetry to the Russian public for the first time. Standing on scaffolding over the Moscow subway, they performed their anarchic track Release the Cobblestones, on electric guitars and vocals. Members of the group also ripped open pillows, sending feathers scattering into the air around them and onto the train tracks below. Along with their performance intervention, which echoes the Situationist movement, Pussy Riot recorded the performance and edited into a music video for the song, which they later released onto YouTube.

Pussy Riot deliberately chose November to perform their track as the anniversary of 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The political situation around them had also turned sour following what appeared to be a rigged election won by the Kremlin's United Russia Party, reinstating Putin to the position of President once again. Widespread street protests and demonstrations were staged across Russia, and Pussy Riot's angry punk protest reflected the growing frustrations of the large swathes of the Russian people.

Sampled from the Angelic Upstarts track Police Oppression, Pussy Riot's track, Release the Cobblestones calls for Russian people to protest the election by throwing cobblestones during street protests because, as they say in the song, "ballots will be used as toilet paper." In the most famous line of the song, they make reference to the uprising in Egypt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak that took place as part of the "Arab Spring" in 2011. Pussy Riot hoped to ignite a similar situation in Russia, singing "Egyptian air is healthy for your lungs/Turn red square into Tahrir." There is also an important feminist dimension to this performance, through the assertive female voices used in an oppressive context. As they argued in a public statement, "after the Arab spring Russia lacks political and sexual liberation, boldness, a feminist whip and a woman president."

The colourful balaclavas worn by Pussy Riot were inspired by the third-wave feminist artist group the Guerrilla Girls, who similarly made anonymous protests against a patriarchal system through humorous and satirical interventions in public space. But as writer Evelyn McDonnell points out, dissident artistic voices can also be traced back much further, from the 1960s and artists such as Yoko Ono to Karen Finley in the 1980s and 90s. She writes, "The torch, blazing more strongly than ever, may be passed back to where it was first lighted."

Artwork Images

Putin Zassal (2012)

Putin Zassal, or "Putin has wet himself," was the provocative title of this performance by Pussy Riot, also released as a track in 2012. Eight members of the group gathered together and performed the anarchic song against a backdrop of smoke bombs in Russia's Red Square whilst wearing their trademark bright clothes and balaclavas. Like many of their performances this live action was also made into a YouTube video to spread their message to a wider audience.

The lyrics of the song are aimed directly at both Putin and the Orthodox church, who they saw as deeply oppressive towards women and LGBT groups. One of their most provocative lyrics simply states that "The Orthodox religion is a hardened penis / coercing its subjects to accept conformity."

Drawing from the history of female punk and art protest groups, including the Guerrilla Girls and the Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s, Pussy Riot became a powerful and outspoken voice for oppressed women in Russia, and, by extension, across the world. They argued in an interview, "We somehow developed what they did in the 1990s, although in an absolutely different context and with an exaggerated political stance." There is also a distinctly ironic humour that underpins their actions, mocking the supposed conventions of well-behaved, compliant female sexuality by turning it completely on its head through lyrics, performance style and the theatricality of their clothing. One Pussy Riot member even claimed her balaclava made her feel like a superhero. Writer Valerie Sperling argues, "their series of songs, published as video clips on the web, endorsed mass protest against the Putin regime, criticised state sponsored homophobia, and praised feminism as a possible curative for Russia's many ills."

Artwork Images

Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Drive Putin Away (2012)

On February 21, 2012 five members of Pussy Riot entered Moscow's Russian Orthodox Cathedral, smuggling in amps and guitars. Dropping their dark winter coats, they put on bright balaclavas and jumped over the gold security rail, standing in an area in front of the altar usually reserved for men. Once there they jumped around, screaming and shouting for less than a minute before security guards seized them. The short video clip of the public intervention was edited together with footage taken in another church by the members of the group, also adding on a recorded version of the punk song, which featured provocative lyrics calling out "Punk-Prayer - mother of God, Chase Putin away!" Other lyrics attacked the church, likening it to the KGB and criticising those who subserviently accept its doctrine without question, before asking the Virgin Mary to drive out Putin and his corrupt church affiliates.

The group posted the video online on the same day, and it quickly became a viral sensation. The internet was instrumental in amplifying their message to a wide audience, and, unlike their previous interventions, which had receded into relative obscurity, as a result of the video news of their protest reached church patriarch Kirill, who informed Putin. After a brief period in hiding, three members of Pussy Riot were found and arrested - Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Charged without bail, for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," their three-month trial period sparked international debate and a media frenzy.

Political arguments ensued about the nature of their supposed crimes, and the unfairness of their convictions, but Pussy Riot had also opened up questions of the role the Orthodox Church played in modern Russia, as well as women and LGBT groups' severely limited rights under Putin's rule. In his public response, Putin essentially ignored the content of their message, instead staging Pussy Riot as terrorists who threatened the security of the church, rather than political activists. Two of the women, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were charged and sent to a brutal labor camp, while the third, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was given a suspended sentence as she had young children. But the international, feminist message broadcast by Pussy Riot continued to rage on around the world, serially embarrassing the Russian Government and provoking many statements of support. The legacy of the performance endures, with writer Ione Gamble arguing that, "Their fluoro balaclavas and part-art performance, part-activist ideology inspired a generation of Tumblr-raised feminists to take their activism offline." Time Magazine counted Pussy Riot among the most influential women of the century, writing, "Pussy Riot's message of defiance still inspires young women in Russia and far beyond."

More Important Art

Putin Will Teach you How to Love the Motherland (2014)

View all Important Art

Influences and Connections

Influences on Artist

Influenced by Artist

Artists

The Guerrilla Girls
Karen Finley
Bikini Kill
The 4-Skins

Friends & Personal Connections

The Blue Noses
Alexander Brener
Alexei Plutser-Sarno

Movements & Ideas

Post-Soviet Actionism
Moscow Actionism
Riot grrrl

Artists

Damir Muratov
Louise Distras
Gaggle

Friends & Personal Connections

Banksy
Pyotr Pavlensky

Movements & Ideas

Punk Art
Protest Art

Open Influences

Close Influences

Useful Resources on Pussy Riot

Books

websites

articles

video clips

Books

The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. These also suggest some accessible resources for further research, especially ones that can be found and purchased via the internet.

biography

written by artist

artworks

View more books

websites

articles

video clips

Do more

Content compiled and written by Rosie Lesso

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Lewis Church

"Pussy Riot Artist Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rosie Lesso
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Lewis Church
Available from:
First published on 02 Jul 2020. Updated and modified regularly
[Accessed ]

Copy to clipboard