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Petr Pavlensky: why I nailed my scrotum to Red Square | Performance art | The Guardian

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O n a snowless but chilly afternoon early in the Moscow winter, a 29-year-old man with a gaunt, emaciated face stepped on to the vast expanse of Red Square. He made his way to a spot on the cobblestones not far from the marble mausoleum housing the waxy corpse of Vladimir Lenin, and began to undress. In less than a minute, he was naked. A video taken using a handheld camera and posted online moments later shows tourists gawping as he sits on the ground. A police car arrives, and an officer orders the man to get up. But the man cannot get up – because he is attached to the icy cobbles with a single, long nail that is driven through his scrotum and into the stones below. This was only the third piece of protest art in the oeuvre of St Petersburg native Petr Pavlensky, but he has already made a name for himself as one of the most intriguing figures on the contemporary Russian art scene. Tapping into the instincts that drove Pussy Riot, and their progenitors, the Voina art collective, Pavl

'I'm ready for anything' ... Artist Petr Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to Red Square in front of the Kremlin wall in central Moscow, 10 November, 2013. Photograph: Reuters 'I'm ready for anything' ... Artist Petr Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to Red Square in front of the Kremlin wall in central Moscow, 10 November, 2013. Photograph: Reuters Performance art This article is more than 12 years old Petr Pavlensky: why I nailed my scrotum to Red Square This article is more than 12 years old He has wrapped himself in barbed wire, sewn his lips shut and caused the world to wince with his now-infamous

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