Pavlensky: Russia's Performance Artist Provocateur
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, a supporter of jailed members of female punk band "Pussy Riot", looks on with his mouth sewed up as he protests outside the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, July 23, 2012.
A Moscow court on Wednesday freed radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who has been in jail since he set fire to the headquarters of the country's security services last year.
The court fined Pavlensky 500,000 rubles ($7,750) for damaging a cultural site and ordered him to pay 481,000 rubles to compensate the cost of repairs to the building, Pavlensky was on trial for a performance called “Threat. The Burning Door of Lubyanka.” In the performance, carried out in the middle of the night in November last year, he poured gasoline on the wooden doors of the Federal Security Service building on Lubyanka Square in central Moscow. He then lit them on fire and posed in front of the flames for photographs, dressed in a hooded jacket and holding a gas canister.
Read more: Russian Court Frees Radical Artist Pyotr Pavlensky
A Moscow court on Wednesday freed radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who has been in jail since he set fire to the headquarters of the country's security services last year.
The court fined Pavlensky 500,000 rubles ($7,750) for damaging a cultural site and ordered him to pay 481,000 rubles to compensate the cost of repairs to the building, Pavlensky was on trial for a performance called “Threat. The Burning Door of Lubyanka.” In the performance, carried out in the middle of the night in November last year, he poured gasoline on the wooden doors of the Federal Security Service building on Lubyanka Square in central Moscow. He then lit them on fire and posed in front of the flames for photographs, dressed in a hooded jacket and holding a gas canister.
Read more: Russian Court Frees Radical Artist Pyotr Pavlensky
Trend Photo Agency / Reuters
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky lies on the ground, wrapped in barbed wire roll, during a protest action in St. Petersburg, May 3, 2013.
Artur Bainozarov / Reuters
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky sits on the pavestones of Red Square during a protest action in front of the Kremlin wall in central Moscow, Nov. 10, 2013.
Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky drums with sticks as tyres burn during a performance called "Freedom", in support of Ukrainian anti-government protesters who held rallies in Maidan Nezalezhnosti or Independence Square in Kiev, in front of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in central St. Petersburg, Feb. 23, 2014.
Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky sits on the wall enclosing the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry after he cut off a part of his earlobe during his protest action titled "Segregation" in Moscow, Oct. 19, 2014.
Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky holds a petrol can during a protest action titled ''Threat'' in front of the Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters in central Moscow, Nov. 9, 2015.
Nigina Beroeva / For MT