Pussy Riot brings its radical performance art to Jeffrey Deitch’s gallery and invites everyone to join their protest against the authoritarian leader of Russia who started the biggest war in Europe since World War II. For the first time, Pussy Riot are showing their political performance art at a gallery solo in Los Angeles on January 27th.
Created in response to Putin’s war in Ukraine, Putin’s Ashes was initiated in August 2022, when Pussy Riot burned a 10 x 10-foot portrait of the Russian president, performed rituals, and cast spells aimed to chase Putin away. Twelve women participated in the performance. In order to join, women were required to experience acute hatred and resentment toward the Russian president. Most of the participants were either Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian.
Pussy Riot’s founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova bottled the ashes of the burnt portrait and incorporated them into her objects that are being presented alongside her short art film Putin’s Ashes, directed, edited, and scored by Tolokonnikova. See the trailer video for Putin’s Ashes above.
“While working with artifacts, bottling ashes, and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world, and he has to be stopped immediately” says Tolokonnikova.
Please note this text on Nadya Tolokonnikova “MASTURBATING TO SOLZHENITSYN: Nadya Tolokonnikova as a Hero of Our Time” Published at AUTRE.LOVE by writer and musician Max Lawton, translator of many Vladimir Sorokin and Jonathan Littell books for instance.
About Nadya Tolokonnikova:
Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the founding member of Pussy Riot, a global feminist protest art movement. Today, hundreds of people identify as a part of the Pussy Riot community.
She was sentenced in 2012 to 2 years imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance. Went through a hunger strike protesting savage prison conditions and ended up being sent far away to a Siberian penal colony, where she managed to maintain her artistic activity and with her prison punk band she made a tour around Siberian labor camps. Published a book “Read and riot: Pussy Riot’s guide to activism”.
Co-founder of independent news service and media outlet, Mediazona. Has spoken before the US Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament, appeared as herself on season 3 of House of Cards.
Pussy Riot’s Punk-prayer was named by The Guardian among the best art pieces of the 21st century (“feminist, explicitly anti-Putin, protesting the banning of gay pride and the Orthodox church’s support of the president”), collaborated with Bansky on his Dismaland exhibition, endorsed by Marina Abramovic and Ai Weiwei, created an immersive experience in Saatchi gallery in London.
Pussy Riot stands for gender fluidity, inclusivity, matriarchy, love, laughter, decentralization, anarchy, and anti-authoritarianism.
Jeffrey Deitch Gallery
Pussy Riot – Putin’s Ashes
January 27 – February 3, 2023
7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90038
On the opening night, only people in balaclavas will be granted entry. Balaclavas will be provided at the gallery entrance. Guests are encouraged to bring their own balaclavas, as well as RSVP – Link to Eventbrite RSVP
