They arrived in a rush of color and noise. More than 50 members of Pussy Riot stormed the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale on Wednesday, only to find police already forcing the doors shut.
What followed unfolded outside: a loud, kinetic protest that blurred performance and confrontation. After playing DISOBEY, Pussy Riot gave way to FEMEN activists, who advanced through blue and yellow smoke with Ukrainian flags and chants. It was the first time the two groups had staged a joint action.
A handful of protesters briefly made it inside before being tackled and removed by private security and Italian police. Outside, Pussy Riot members in pink ski masks raised their fists, played guitars, and moshed in a tight, defiant circle.
Nadya Tolokonnikova cast the protest as a challenge to who gets to represent Russia on an international stage:
“Russia’s best citizens are either imprisoned for anti-regime and pro-Ukraine actions or killed in jail, while Europe opens its doors to Putin’s officials and propagandists. If art is meant to represent a country at the Venice Biennale — something like the Olympics of the art world — then artists imprisoned for their anti-war, pro-Ukraine stance are the real face of modern Russia.
While Pietrangelo Buttafuoco greets his Russian guests with champagne, drones and ballistic missiles fall in Ukraine, thousands of POWs and political prisoners sit in cold jail cells. Their lives are not abstraction, their lives are worth considering – they will not be forgotten and erased as the Kremlin’s stooges hope to achieve.
Pussy Riot offers the following proposal — If art should truly outshine censorship, we offer a plan for imprisoned artists (current and former) (link) to represent Russia at the Venice Biennale in 2028. We offer our curatorial services. All we need is Russia’s pavilion to be handed from the illegal terrorists that currently wage the largest war in Europe since World War 2, to those who have spent years in the GULAGs of this oppressive regime, and who explicitly support Ukraine’s sovereignty.
We call on Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, Luca Zaia, Luigi Brugnaro to meet with us and discuss the best way to move forward. We work with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on this initiative (Written Declaration & Motion).”
FEMEN’s Inna Shevchenko sharpened the message:
“We say it clearly: RUSSIA KILLS — BIENNALE EXHIBITS. BLOOD IS RUSSIA’S ART
Every Russian artwork shown this year stands on an invisible pedestal: Ukrainian blood. You won’t find it in the catalogue. But it is the only material that truly holds this pavilion together.
Russian terrorist state uses culture to disguise itself.Blood is Russia’s only medium. Everything else is decoration. And the Biennale exhibits it.
Because you can open this pavilion with champagne,
while Ukraine opens its graves with shovels. Between these two gestures, you must decide where you stand.
And this year, the Biennale has decided.
We demand that reality enters this space — now. If you exhibit Russia, then exhibit its crimes. Show the bombed Ukrainian cities. Show the graves. Show the bodies — civilians, mutilated, without limbs, forever changed.
Otherwise, this is not art.
This is propaganda.
And you are part of it.”
Behind the pavilion, allied activists staged a parallel action on empire, repression, and silenced voices, joined by members of Pussy Riot.
The argument from protesters is blunt: Russia’s presence this year, they say, is not neutral but political—artists aligned with the state, culture deployed as cover.
The reply came, instead, as a chant—relentless, stripped down to a single word.
Pussy Riot — DISOBEY (lyrics)
disobey disobey disobey
disobey disobey disobey
ебаные фашистские ублюдки (translated – Fucking fascist bastards)
убийцы детей, матерей (translated – killers of children and mothers)
я ебала ваши блядские мутки (translated – Fuck your fucked-up schemes)
суки уебывайте скорее (translated – you bitches, get the fuck out already)
im not your fucking jesus christ
im not going to die for your sins
get up from your couch and fight
disobey disobey disobey
disobey disobey disobey
im so done with your explanations
you say you can’t change anything
disobey disobey disobey
we live at the end of world
i dont give a shit about this fucking song
disobey disobey disobey
words Alexa Wang
