Member of Pussy Riot Returns to Her Roots in Recycling Religion

It was nothing short of surreal seeing Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot — blonde curls, deadpan blue eyes and all — milling about by the wine table at WhiteBox this past Sunday. Alyokhina was not the only artist participating. In fact, there was a large group of artists, a number of them also Russian, participating in the group show, Recycling Religion, at the Lower East Side non-profit gallery. But she was certainly the most eye-popping of the lot.

Since she and her fellow masked activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were released from a Russian prison (where they were sent in 2012 for engaging in “hooliganism” motivated by “religious hatred”), the two have become Western celebrities: popping up on red carpets, appearing on House of Cards, touring with Madonna, while continuing to speak out against various injustices in their home country and across the globe.

And last year, there was the star-studded Amnesty International concert in which “Pussy Riot” appeared onstage in the company of Madonna at the Barclay’s Center. Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker that the show had “ideological problems,” resulting from an awkward blend of vapid pop singers and activists who had served time as prisoners of conscience and thus “paid for the denunciation of statist intolerance with their own bodies.”

That same sticky contrast may not be present at Recycling Religion, but there’s still something equally peculiar (and sort of brilliant) going on here.

After the Amnesty International concert, the remaining members of Pussy Riot (who have remained anonymous unlike Maria and Nedezhda, but by the same token were not jailed in a high-profile case) took to LiveJournal and denounced the two women who had become recognizable around the world, not for what they were doing, but for continuing to carry the Pussy Riot name.

They argued that Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina’s newfound efforts to fight for prison reform were no longer consistent with the group’s ideals: “feminism, separatist resistance, fight against authoritarianism and personality cult, all of which, as a matter of fact, was the cause for their unjust punishment.” But most importantly, they claimed that the two women no longer represented the collective, only themselves conceding that the group had lost two members, the world had gained “two brave, interesting, controversial human rights defenders.” Above all, they insisted, Maria and Nedezhda were on their own.

The two responded publicly to the LiveJournal announcement, saying that they “no longer speak to other members of the group,” according to the Times but also that the letter “doesn’t follow the ideology of Pussy Riot.” Following this hiccup, there were no more utterances of the split, at least from most major media outlets. But a LiveJournal entry from the same Pussy Riot page announced, in a post-dated blog post: “Pussy Riot is Dead! […] The group died. The bodies decomposed, and worms are silent.”

It was interesting then, to see that Maria’s contribution to Recycling Religion–  fresh off the boat back from Satellite Art Fair — was a grainy 30-second video capturing Punk Prayer, or the now-famous Pussy Riot public action inside an Orthodox Church in Moscow, the one that landed Nadezhda and Maria in prison, and the last one in which they appeared to be amongst a group of other Pussy Riot members.

At first the video, projected on the white wall above the heads of gallery-goers, struck me as outdated, or worse– a means of exploiting the fascination surrounding Pussy Riot to bring attention to the show. Still, on opening night, people locked their eyes on the video, which was accompanied by sound. Even though most of them were guaranteed to have seen it many times before, it was a reminder at once of the chaos, but also the innocence out of which Maria’s rebellion was born.

Sure, this was sacred ground these girls were stomping on, but were they really doing much damage here? They were dressed in neon balaclavas, hardly menacing shades of a very scary looking face mask, readily associated with Kalashnikovs and guerrilla warfare. The girls, and they look more like girls here, less like women — what with their spunky bounce and rebellious chants — jump up and down, and strum guitars and swing around microphones. It’s actually sort of cute.

Did we really need to be watching this again? But the video’s poignancy comes with the context. When you remind yourself that Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova were actually sent to prison for this action, obviously it acquires much more meaning. And reflecting on the rest of the work included in Recycling Religion, the whole thing becomes complex, historical, and much deeper.

After thinking on it, I realized putting Pussy Riot on the bill here in this show was less about drawing attention to the rest of the work, but rather a way of breaking down the rest of the work for a Western audience, which most likely has little to no understanding of the historic and present role of the Orthodox Church in Russia and Eastern Europe (the focus of this show) and how since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that role has become increasingly meddling in politics, policy, and even individual freedoms.

The description for Recycling Religion reads more like a manifesto (which is so, so Russian) than anything else: “In the case of art, the Church goes to extreme lengths to impose and control popular taste.” It continues: “As one allegedly spiritual force engages in tearing the world apart while pretending to mend it, another, more pragmatic, biological force appeals to the need to rebuild society out of the ruins of Orthodoxy, thus recycling religion, rather than eradicating it entirely.”

The work on display is rife with Orthodox imagery– crosses, depictions of saints, visages of Jesus. The icon is of major importance in Eastern Orthodox Christianity and is understood as the means by which people the faithful can connect with God.

British artist Robert Priseman‘s series Fame included a large number of tiny paintings which depicted a variety of pop culture figures as icons including Sid Vicious, Marilyn Monroe, and Whitney Houston. Their execution struck me as something that could have been made by one of those open-air painters who hover close to tourist traps and sell their “paintings” which are  actually made by a machine in China, to unwitting plebes. That association, paired with the obvious metaphor (celebrities are the gods of a consumerist society) made the whole thing a little clunky. Still, it offered a nice introduction to the show and they were fun to look at.

Actual Jesus made an appearance in the Banksy-esque light installations by Alexander Kosolapov that recalled advertisements. Jesus gazes softly at the viewer, he’s kept company by the Coca-Cola logo (2001 – 2014). “This is my blood,” one of the signs reads. The image might look familiar, but that’s perhaps because Kosolapov — part of the SOTS Art (or Soviet pop art) crew (we recently encountered another member, actually) who along with many of his contemporaries, immigrated to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in the mid-’70s —  has been making use of the iconic Coca-Cola logo since at least the early ’80s, back when he combined the ultimate symbol of Capitalism with likeness of Lenin. Back then, this made since the Soviet Union still existed and socialist ideology was king.

Another Kosolapov piece is a massive, red sculpture depicting Mickey Mouse, Lenin, and Jesus holding hands. It’s cleverly titled, “Hero, Leader, God” (2001-2014). You get the idea– Russian society still has a complicated relationship with Lenin (i.e., socialism) and paradoxically Mickey Mouse (capitalism) as well, but is increasingly buddying up with Jesus (the Orthodox Church) too.

But you can feel the safe distance between Kosolapov, Priseman, and some of the other participating artists and the oppressive force they’re calling out. The artists who are closer to the beast, it’s their work that feels much more of-the-moment and has greater implications for the Russia of right now, which is once again a dangerous place for speaking out against the powers-that-be, which increasingly includes the Church. Punk Prayer reminds us of the consequences of speaking out, even in the form of artistic expression.

Of the more “dangerous” work, there is Arsen Savadov, a Ukrainian artist who splits his time between Kiev and New York City. Ukraine, once on the pathway to EU accession, has become an increasingly scary place to be and it also a former socialist country where the Orthodox Church is seeing an enormous growth in its power and influence. If you weren’t paying attention, you might glance over his series of digital prints <<Underground 2000>> thinking they were just another Renaissance religious painting. Yawn city. But look closely, and you’ll find there’s something off about them, and suddenly you’ll feel stupid and realize these aren’t paintings at all.

Set in the same sub-real landscapes and caves where Biblical scenes always seem to take place, Savadov’s prints look almost like elaborate photo sets with cardboard cutouts of saints and angels. Amongst the Christian accoutrements are pieces of furniture that you’d easily find at Ikea and often the holy creatures are engaging in bizarre or sometimes just very human behavior. The trappings of our own existence against these religious figures makes them appear all the more ridiculous and mythical. In the context of a religion where imagery is so holy, these depictions could easily count for blasphemy.

I found the downstairs at the gallery to be a little more dynamic in terms of sensory stimulation. The small space wreaks of incense and is an echo chamber of bizarre sounds emanating from the excellent, but admittedly out of place piece of work by Italian artist Federico Solmi. The Brotherhood (2015) is hallucinatory animation depicting a mechanical doll-like Pope acting very Satanic indeed, parading through the streets, waving like an animatronic horror movie character at his blank-eyed constituents. It’s just too bad it’s Catholic. But if you don’t give any hoots about consistency, watch away (I certainly did).

While Solmi’s piece feels fun and playful, it offers a stark contrast to some of the work coming out of Russia, where artists whose work could be interpreted as critical of the Church are at risk for persecution. Whereas Solmi’s free-speech-protected work is energetic, frenetic, excitable, and weird– it positively bubbles over with creativity — overall, the work from the Russians is not so lush. Rather, it is stripped-down, and while imbued with jokes, it’s dry and somber.

See, for example, Vladimir Kozin’s Mournful Slavic Baroque sculpture series (trust: it’s a grower, not a show-er) — altars and skulls built from raw, pine pieces. The sculptures make no effort to hide the screws, and rather than emphasizing craftsmanship, the artist references thrift, or lack of materials, and limitations. The only thing that feels alive is the drip, drip, dripping of wax from the lit candles.

Kozin (who was born in Ukraine and lives in St. Petersburg, Russia) and the topics he and the other in-Russia artists confront, emphasize that the situation in Russia is no laughing matter. The consequences of Punk Prayer are a strong, real life reminder of this and help ground the art in the ultimate example of crushing free speech.

Recycling Religion is on view at WhiteBox through January 17, 2016. 

Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly indicated that Recycling Religion was part of Miami Art Basel; the exhibition was a part of Satellite.