November 11, 2013

"On Sunday the protest artist Petr Pavlensky sat naked on Red Square and drove a nail through his scrotum and into the pavement."

"Pavlensky had staged disturbing protests before."
In July of last year, he sewed his mouth shut and stood outside a cathedral in St. Petersburg in a show of solidarity with the jailed art collective Pussy Riot. In May he had himself wrapped, naked, in a cocoon of barbed wire and placed on the steps of the St. Petersburg legislature. He lay immobile while the police hunted for a pair of garden shears, severed the wire and then struggled to avoid being cut themselves. That time Pavlensky was protesting a series of restrictions on freedom of speech and of assembly....

Each of these actions required the police to deal with Pavlensky’s body — something Russian law enforcement officials almost never have to do, even though they routinely mangle, maim and kill protesters, convicts and perceived violators of rules and laws.

19 comments:

Bob Boyd said...

Holey balls

Anonymous said...

Balls to the wall might be a bit more effective.

Bob Boyd said...

A Russian Tea Bagger?

Wince said...

If I Had a Hammer

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land

I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Gabriel Hanna said...

Strongly suspect the motivation is more personal and less about free speech.

Cedarford said...

Seems like it takes more and more self-sacrifice these days to get your fleeting 15 minutes of fame.

YoungHegelian said...

As bad as it must hurt to nail your scrotum to the floor, it must hurt even worse when the hammer misses the nail. Far worse than a hammered thumb, fer shure, fer shure.

Bob Boyd said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bob Boyd said...

The new Russian symbol, the hammerin' sicko.

Andrew X said...

Oh c'mon. Haven't we all sat in a public square and nailed our genitals to the pavement at one time or another?? BO-ring!!! Old hat by now.

Call me when you have something new.

Crunchy Frog said...

DIY vasectomy.

traditionalguy said...

That is a great way for a man to show discontent.

Smilin' Jack said...

I hope more artists draw inspiration from this. Starting with Christo.

Joe said...

What if they just ignored him?

Jay Patrick said...

In some ways this reminds me of Amy Alkon's story of how she handled the TSA handling her:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/04/26/make_it_tough_t.html

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Well, I certainly don't doubt his sincerity. When Occupy starts driving sixteenpennies through their nads I might take them seriously.
Nah, not even then.

Anonymous said...

I wish American performance artists had the balls for this.

Joe Schmoe said...

Those Wisconsin state house protesters were mere pikers compared to this guy.

But before we get too out of breath about this, isn't there a bunch of Jackass movies where guys basically do the same thing, over and over again?

USA! USA! USA!

Sam L. said...

Deserves what he gets, I guess.