The protest collective’s first solo gallery show invites you to don a balaclava and watch magic and activism collide
Out in the middle of the desert, 12 women wearing black silk dresses and blood-red balaclavas stand to attention as a ten-foot portrait of Vladimir Putin goes up in flames. Fans of Pussy Riot will immediately recognise this as one of the protest collective’s radical performance pieces, with an aesthetic – juxtaposing military aggression with overt femininity – that’s reminiscent of the 2012 punk performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour that made them a household name. This time, though, it isn’t just a performance. The burning was actually a magical ritual, the group says, intended to neutralise the Russian president.
Speaking over Zoom from an anonymous location, Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova clarifies that this isn’t a metaphor. “I think magic is real,” she tells Dazed. “We really hope that Putin is going to die.”
Tolokonnikova has been “geo-anonymous” for some time, thanks to the ongoing threat of the Russian government, which listed her as a “foreign agent” in 2021, marking her as a significant political target. This follows her imprisonment back in 2013, and the “continuous arrests” of many other Pussy Riot activists in the intervening years. Nevertheless, Tolokonnikova refuses to back down. In fact, Pussy Riot’s influence is only growing in the face of Putin’s aggression. Case in point: this Friday (January 27) the collective opens its first solo show, at Los Angeles’ Jeffrey Deitch, where the Putin’s Ashes performance – documented in a film of the same name – will take centre stage.
For Pussy Riot, this marks a strange turning point. On the one hand, the gallery show will help convert new followers to its anti-authoritarian cause, and if enough of them push the big red button marked “This button neutralises Vladimir Putin”, maybe they can manifest the dictator’s magical death. On the other, how does the collective square its newfound acceptance – the kind that comes with gallery shows and star-studded mixtapes – with its anarchic and decentralised roots? How does it adapt its spontaneous protest art to sit comfortably in a white cube gallery?
Tolokonnikova admits that there are difficulties when translating performance art into a “controlled environment” such as a gallery or museum. “The whole thing about performance art is that you interact with the environment, and [the] environment becomes your co-creator,” she says. “I’ve trained myself since 2007 to think about this kind of art. You do a performance, and then the cops appear, and then people appear, and they interact with you in ways you cannot predict. Magic happens.” As a result of this training, she initially found it difficult to approach more structured work. “Even a music video was a big challenge for me,” she says. “I was like, ‘What do you mean I have to think everything through, every single detail? Where’s the magic going to happen?’”
The solution, in the case of Pussy Riot’s solo show, is to introduce some of performance art’s unpredictability into the gallery space. On opening night, visitors will only be able to enter if they’re wearing a balaclava (Tolokonnikova has hundreds to hand out on the door, but encourages people to bring their own in case these run out). Once inside, they’ll be treated to a custom-composed Pussy Riot track and projections that are meant to mimic the chaos and spontaneity of a street protest, alongside the Putin’s Ashes film, and real ashes collected from the burning of the portrait. Finally, they will be invited out onto the street for a classic, IRL Pussy Riot performance to protest Vladimir Putin. “People are invited to express their anger,” Tolokonnikova says. “Go nuts.”
Ultimately, the gallery show is “a process of initiating people into Pussy Riot” she explains. “We always say anyone can be Pussy Riot. If you get the balaclava, agree with us that Putin is the most dangerous dictator on the planet today, listen to our songs, mosh... there you go, you’re a member of Pussy Riot.”
“We don’t have a central committee that decides if a person is a member or not... You just have to not be an asshole” – Nadya Tolokonnikova
It’s this expansive view of the Pussy Riot project that inspired Tolokonnikova to get involved with Web3 projects such as UnicornDAO in the past year, as well. These have enabled Pussy Riot to raise millions in support of Ukraine since the outbreak of Russia’s invasion, with a Shepard Fairey-designed charity NFT coming in parallel with the Putin’s Ashes show. They’ve also helped grow the collective beyond borders, with a global community assembling around shared ideas about feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and addressing economic inequalities.
“We don’t have a central committee, or any type of organ that decides if a person is a member or not. It’s really organic and flexible,” Tolokonnikova explains, adding that there’s pretty much only one rule for Pussy Riot membership: “You just have to not be an asshole.”
Dreams of growing such a community date back to Tolokonnikova’s time as a young artist and activist studying philosophy at Moscow State University, and only grew stronger when she was sent to a Siberian penal colony and became a globally-recognised face of Russian dissent. With Putin’s Ashes, she found another way to turn her imprisonment against her captors, using skills such as sewing – learned during 12-hour stints of manual labour without pause for food or rest – to handcraft elements of the artwork. “It was important for me to work with my hands,” she says. “I’m working on my trauma from prison by using these skills... And it’s a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to the prison system.”
Working with her hands also contributed to the sense of ritual when it came to burning the Putin artwork. “It had to be really intentional,” she says, adding that everyone who participated had to have strong feelings toward Putin, and truly believe that he has to be removed from power. As a result, many of the 12 women who appear in the artwork are from post-Soviet backgrounds, including a few people who had to flee Ukraine due to the war. “We hold on our shoulders, as people who were born in Russia, enormous collective shame about what is happening in Ukraine right now,” Tolokonnikova adds. “Having Ukrainians participate, and... coming together to oppose [Putin] was deeply meaningful.”
“That’s what I call magic: our interpersonal connections as people who belong to this big, organic body” – Nadya Tolokonnikova
Is it those connections that make this performance piece particularly magical, for Tolokonnikova? “When I talk about magic, I talk about this extra layer we have to keep in mind when we think about people interacting, or about nations interacting, or people interacting in major mass movements,” she explains. “That’s what I call magic: our interpersonal connections as people who belong to this big, organic body.”
It’s a magic that Tolokonnikova notices in young activists today, such as Greta Thunberg and the climate movement that has organised around her, and it takes her back to the nationwide protests against Putin in 2011. “I’d go into the street, obviously to protest,” she says, “but also just to feel this magic of belonging to something much bigger than yourself.”
Pussy Riot’s first solo show opens at Jeffrey Deitch Los Angeles on January 27. A Putin’s Ashes NFT drop, created in collaboration with Shepard Fairey, launches January 27 through to February 3, raising funds for Ukraine.