»Political art works with the instruments of power this will transform these instruments into material.« The Russian action artist Pjotr Pawlenski (* 1984) has decisively influenced the Russian art in the last years with his actions. For his action “Threat” in November 2015, he lit the door of the Russian secret service FSB and was convicted to prison. At the beginning of June 2016 he was fined and released from pre-trial detention.
The present volume includes Pawlenski’s Art Manifesto and three interrogations he secretly recorded, and which were conducted by an investigator from the Russian Public Prosecutor’s Office to find out whether Pawlenski was involved in the burning of tires on a St. Petersburg bridge (Aktion Freiheit). For this offense of vandalism he could be charged.
In the Manifesto Pawlenski makes clear that his art is not exhausted in public space, but always and even fundamentally involves the reaction of the judiciary, since only the reaction of state authorities, mostly by repression, opens the field of conflict where the artistic criticism and Instruments of power collide.
