Piotr Pavlenski, the man behind Benjamin Griveaux's setbacks?

Piotr Pavlenski, 35, symbolizes Russian protest art on his own. Thomas Bourdeau / RFI

Text by: RFI Follow

It is a Russian, the protesting artist Piotr Pavlenski, who would have posted the videos which precipitated the end of Benjamin Griveaux's candidacy for mayor of Paris. According to the French daily Liberation who spoke to him, the artist claims to hold these videos "from a" source "who had a consented relationship with Benjamin Griveaux".

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Piotr Pavlenski is far from unknown, both in the artistic circles and in the police in Russia, as in France, reports our correspondent in Moscow, Daniel Vallot .

His dissenting, provocative works have already won him not only international notoriety, but also to have been condemned by both the Russian and French courts.

Originally from Saint Petersburg, now 35 years old, Piotr Pavlenski made himself known in 2012, by sewing his lips in support of the Pussy Riot . The following year, he nailed the skin of his testicles to Red Square, to denounce, he said, apathy and political indifference in Russia.

In 2016, during his first visit to prison, he set fire to the doors of the FSB, the headquarters of the Russian security services. Accused of sexual assault in his country, he asked for, and obtained, asylum in France in 2017. Far from settling down, another blow of brilliance: he set fire to a branch of the Banque de France in the square de la Bastille, in Paris and will spend a year in prison.

► Read also : " I want to force the Russian government to make art " (interview)

He is therefore an atypical character, an uncompromising personality, an artist who follows the same current of action as the Pussy Riot. For him art and politics are intimately linked and each of his actions aims to bring about a response from the authorities, most often a police response and, if possible, a judicial response. In his eyes, this political art must be closer to terrorism than to opera, according to a statement made last summer to the New York Times .

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  • France
  • 2020 municipal elections
  • Russia
  • Culture

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