Fixation
On the 10th November 2013, Pyotr Pavlensky nailed his own scrotum to the pavement of Red Square. Policemen who arrived covered the artist with a white sheet and then arrested him. They opened a legal case of minor public disturbance but the next day, he was released. Remarkably, the prosecutor’s signature on the documentation bore an uncanny resemblance to the barbed wire cocoon in which the artist had previously encased himself during The Carcass performance.
“Through this performance, I tried to convey the idea of the society’s complete defeat by the police system. Such fixation deprives society of any development, and life becomes fruitless.
I timed to my action to coincide with the day of Russian police. In Russian culture, red is the colour of police power, of their despotism – in general, it symbolises everything about the police. As an artist caught in a fixation, I wanted to work directly with colour. November 10 is the reddest day in the year, and on this day the balls of a naked man, deprived of everything, are nailed to the cobbles of the Red Square. This person, who has lost the power even to move, has been caught in the Fixation of police power in its apotheosis.”