Today, Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova and Honor Fraser Gallery announce the exhibition PUNK’S NOT DEAD (Pt. 2) to open on April 25 and runs till May 31st.
Along with this, we’re excited to share that Tolokonnikova's Putin's Ashes was acquired by The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.
About the PUNK'S NOT DEAD (Pt. 2):
Since her early days in the art-activist performance group Voina (2007–2011), through founding Pussy Riot in 2012, and finding new paths to create art under the watchful eye of the Russian government after her release from jail in 2014, Tolokonnikova has been working to create languages of defiance and protest. Following the traditions of the Russian avant-garde, she seeks modes of artistic production that do not merely describe the world but aim to change it. Her work, even in its darkest moments, carries an underlying utopia-building impulse — holding space for the promise of a better future, a never-ending Möbius strip of being, at times, naive and childlike, and at other times, harsh and excruciating.
In her series “ICONS”, Tolokonnikova morphs religious iconography with modern-day slogans and intimate poetry, combining the sacred and the profane — exactly what she was put in jail for by Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church in 2012. Boris Groys, philosopher, art critic, writes: “Tolokonnikova uses traditional Russian Orthodox imagery as a way to break with the established conventions of contemporary art. She has a precursor in Malevich, who used the tradition of icon painting in the same way (...) The artistic avant-garde—at least the early one—was this kind of gesture seeking to reawaken chaos. In our time, few artists situate themselves in this tradition. But Tolokonnikova does precisely this. She searches for the miraculous, in the middle of the rationally, strategically operating art world.” The “SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN” series, reflecting on the role of Big Pharma in modern biopolitics and ideology, features the most popular drugs in the U.S. — Ozempic, Viagra, Adderall, and Botox. Works from the “DARK MATTER” series feature a number of Pussy Riot’s actions — the images are engraved on birch wood and covered with black ink. The exhibit features “RIOT SHIELDS”, relics from PUNK’S NOT DEAD (Pt. 1), a show that took place at Honor Fraser in January 2024: the artist used riot shields as musical instruments, carving them with brass knuckles while having a contact microphone attached to the shield.
About Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova:
Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, a global feminist art movement. She was sentenced in 2012 to 2 years' imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance Punk Prayer, which was named by The Guardian among the best art pieces of the 21st century.
Tolokonnikova's Putin’s Ashes art installation at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in January 2023 propelled her into a new criminal case and put on Russia’s most wanted criminal list, and on the international wanted list, too. In 2024 her debut museum exhibition RAGE, opened at OK Linz, Linz, Austria, and the eponymous performance piece performed at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Rhode Island School of Art and Design (RISD), and received The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political thought. Her visual artworks have been exhibited or collected by The Brooklyn Museum, MOCA, Serpentine Galleries, Wende Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, OK Linz Museum in Austria, American Folk Art Museum, The New Museum, Zimmerli Museum, Ackland Museum of Art, The Museum of Art and Design in New York.
Born: Norilsk, Siberia
Lives: Geographically anonymous
Art images below: RIOT SHIELD (left) and BARBED WIRE, acrylic on canvas, silver leaf (right) / 2025 | 
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