Wednesday 13 September sees the opening of an exhibition at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art that spotlights Pussy Riot’s years-long face-off with the Russian regime. It is the largest presentation of the group’s work to date, and their first ever museum exhibition. It represents some of the most powerful political art of the 21st century. Rooted in punk, humour, poetry and pure rage, the group are famous for spontaneous actions challenging the Russian regime with colourful clothes, disguises and protest songs.
The exhibition VELVET TERRORISM – Pussy Riot’s Russia presents more than ten years of protest performance actions by the feminist-activist art collective Pussy Riot, who appeared for the first time in Moscow in 2011.
About the exhibition:
Poul Erik Tøjner, Director of Louisiana
“Louisiana Museum of Modern Art represents a strong tradition of engaging with the present and contemporary issues such as freedom of speech, democracy and human rights. Pussy Riot’s exhibition is a significant addition to the series of critical voices against authority and systems that we have heard. The museum is an obvious platform to bring the group’s highly topical political art close to life.”
The exhibition is a cacophony of hundreds of photo and video recordings, depicting a large number of Pussy Riot’s actions in public spaces and the consequence their performances have had for those taking part. The group’s non-violent actions have led to arrests, beatings, imprisonment, poisoning, surveillance and house arrest.
Several of their performance actions are famous. For example, Punk Prayer, which took place in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2012. Also, many people looked on as four members of the group, disguised as police officers, ran across the pitch during the 2018 World Cup final match between France and Croatia in Moscow. In addition to these, the exhibition also presents a large range of lesser-known actions as well as the escape from Russia of some of the members in 2022.
The group’s actions have been fuelled by protest against an increasingly authoritarian regime. Viewed from the perspective of Pussy Riot, the exhibition provides an insight into the evolution of Putin’s Russia over the past ten years, leading up to the military invasion of Ukraine.
Recurrent themes in Pussy Riot’s feminist, anti-Putin practice include freedom of expression, human rights, LGBTQ+ rights and the release of political prisoners, while recent actions and works feature anti-war statements and support for Ukraine.
From the perspective of cultural history, the work of Pussy Riot is rooted in Dadaism, Fluxus, political art and 20th-century actionism: they take the methods of happening and performance art to the extreme in the unprotected environment of public spaces.
Velvet Terrorism
The exhibition at Louisiana is a an extended version of an exhibition, which was developed in the course of a few, intense months in close collaboration between Maria Alyokhina (b. 1988) of Pussy Riot and the curators Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir, Ragnar Kjartansson and Dorothée Kirch for the artist-run exhibition venue Kling & Bang in Reykjavik, Iceland. Here, the exhibition ran from 24 November 2022 to 29 January 2023. Louisiana closely followed the genesis of the exhibition, given that it was organised in tandem with the planning of Louisiana’s Kjartansson exhibition Epic Waste of Love and Understanding, which runs until 22 October 2023.
Maria Alyokhina is among Pussy Riot’s formative members. She is an artist, political activist and author of the book Riot Days (Penguin, 2017). Pussy Riot received the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace in 2012 and the Hannah Arendt Award in 2014. Recently they were awarded the 2023 Woody Guthrie Prize – a prize that honours the spirit of resistance through music, literature, dance and other art forms. The title of the exhibition Velvet Terrorism comes from the term used by one of Putin’s spiritual advisors, Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov to dub their work following the group’s protest performance Punk Prayer at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow in 2012.
The exhibition at Louisiana is the start of a tour that includes MAC Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Polygon Gallery, Vancouver.
Curator: Tine Colstrup. In collaboration with the above-mentioned.
Publication: A richly illustrated book reflecting the content of the exhibition is published by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Text by Maria Alyokhina and Pussy Riot, 208 pages.
Louisiana Channel: In the context of the exhibition, Louisiana Channel will release an interview
with Maria Alyokhina.
Louisiana website: www.louisiana.dk.
Louisiana Channel: www.channel.louisiana.dk