Performance as Social Resistance: Pussy Riot as a Feminist Avant-garde

This article describes the short but remarkable sociopolitical life of the Russian rock group Pussy Riot. The group became famous in 2012 not only for the political content of its performances but for its transgressive performativity: its violation of established public settings and its creation of disturbing anti-authoritarianism images of today’s official Russia. The analysis aims to establish Pussy Riot as part of an avant-garde movement and as a radicalization of the very idea of the avant-garde against the familiarity of the public aspect of everyday life. Public ‘normalcy’ reveals itself to be complicit in that what should be criticized is instead taken for granted, and legitimized. Pussy Riot is a new art avant-garde in terms of both how it relates to activism, social justice, feminism, and art, and to the general public, not only to the art world.

2. Blasphemy in scarequotes

‘Blasphemy in scarequotes’ examines contemporary blasphemy cases where ‘blasphemy’ is a smokescreen for realpolitik. ‘Blasphemy’ prosecutions were often an attack on ‘secularism’, and all the sexually and politically dangerous views that often went with it. It is worth considering the story of Naboth’s vineyard in the Bible and the blasphemy charges against the politician Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, journalism student Mashal Khan, artist and poet Ashraf Fayadh, the band Pussy Riot, Aasiya Noreen, as well as Jesus and Socrates. Important in this discussion are both the Charlie Hebdo murders and the establishment of new norms of freedom of religion and freedom from religion as a result of secularist activism.