Pussy Riot at the Venice Biennale. Interview with Nadya Tolokonnikova
“Russia’s art today is blood”
Between pink balaclavas, slogans against Kremlin propaganda, and direct accusations aimed at the Venice Biennale 2026, the protest staged by Pussy Riot and FEMEN in front of the Russian Pavilion transformed the Giardini into one of the most politically tense locations of the Biennale’s opening days. Artribune interviewed Nadya Tolokonnikova.
Link to the Italian version on Artribune
There was a moment during the Biennale preview days when the usual institutional language of contemporary art suddenly gave way to something far more unstable and difficult to control. Not a curatorial talk, not an official press conference, but a protest.
In front of the Russian Pavilion at the Giardini, surrounded by police, journalists, and surprised visitors, Pussy Riot and FEMEN staged STORM OF VENICE, a political and performative action against Russia’s presence at the Biennale. Pink balaclavas, radical slogans, and accusations directed not only at the Kremlin, but also at what they see as the ambiguities of the European cultural system. At the center of the action was a phrase destined to become one of the strongest verbal images of this Biennale: “Blood is Russia’s art.”
For Nadya Tolokonnikova (Norilsk, 1989), activist, performer, singer, outspoken opponent of Vladimir Putin, and member of Pussy Riot, the issue extends far beyond the Russian Pavilion itself. What is ultimately being questioned is the very idea of cultural neutrality in a context shaped by war. The following interview moves through propaganda, censorship, activism, and the role of European art institutions at a historical moment in which the boundary between dialogue and political legitimization appears increasingly fragile.
During the protest, you said that today the real Russia is represented by imprisoned anti-war artists rather than by official cultural institutions. Has contemporary art in Russia become impossible without political compromise?
As Russia slides deeper and deeper into totalitarianism, it becomes increasingly impossible to maintain genuine artistic freedom. It is not only support for Ukraine that is forbidden. You cannot even draw a rainbow. You cannot sing certain songs. Propaganda and censorship penetrate every aspect of life.
But the biggest problem with the Russian Pavilion belongs to another dimension. When an artist agrees to represent official Russia, Russia as an aggressive totalitarian empire, they inevitably become a tool of that empire, whether they realize it or not.
The only possible way out would have been to sabotage the system from within: to use that pavilion to openly denounce the war in Ukraine and call for support for the Ukrainian armed forces. But nothing like that happened. Instead, we saw champagne, photo opportunities with Salvini, Paramonov, and Willem Dafoe. And those images are now proudly circulated by Russian propaganda.
You accused the Biennale of confusing cultural dialogue with political normalization. In your view, where does openness end and complicity begin?
Why do we keep pretending this is an honest discussion about censorship? The people behind the Russian Pavilion, Karneeva, Shvydkoy, and the entire apparatus connected to the FSB and the presidential administration, are the same people imprisoning citizens over pastel drawings.
The real question is whether Europe wants to continue becoming a laughing stock for pro-Kremlin Russians. For decades Russia has fought against European democracy by investing enormous financial and human resources. Sometimes with tanks, other times through compliant political or media figures.
And yet Europe continues opening its doors to Russian propaganda. Either you truly defend your democratic values or you become irrelevant in front of autocrats.
After the protest, the Russian Pavilion used video fragments of your action in its own communication. How did you react?
I would rather tear my eyes out than be associated with those people. That’s why I was happy when they removed the material.
Once again, I find myself in the absurd position of being a Russian girl in exile together with my feminist punk friends, fighting against an entire state and its propaganda machine. And somehow we are treated as two equivalent sides in a “dialogue.” It is almost grotesque.
I think the people managing the pavilion’s communication became too consumed by their own ego and ended up falling into our trap. Mission accomplished.
You said that you repeatedly tried to open a dialogue with Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, Luca Zaia, and Luigi Brugnaro without receiving any response. What political meaning did that silence have for you?
It felt like screaming into the void.
Observing over the years the relationships between Russia and certain European environments, I have the feeling that if someone seriously investigated deeply enough, something would emerge. I cannot prove it. I am an artist, not an investigator. But I hope that people who do have the tools to investigate will take the issue seriously.
Buttafuoco does not want to talk. Maybe he has something to hide.
The absurd part is that he continues hiding behind the idea of open dialogue, while I was chasing him with letters, public statements, official requests to the Council of Europe, even physically knocking on his office door only to find myself blocked by police.
Your action was not officially presented as a performance, yet it took place at the heart of one of the world’s most important art events. Does contemporary activism today need to invade the art system in order to expose its contradictions?
My perspective comes from post-Soviet actionism of the 1990s. From the very beginning, in 2011, Pussy Riot defined its public works as “actions.” The term comes directly from Viennese Actionism.
So yes, STORM OF VENICE is a work of art. A kind of pavilion for a free Russia. But also a rejection of Russia’s attempt to present itself once again as a civilized European presence while simultaneously continuing to launch drones and ballistic missiles at Ukraine.
At the 2026 Biennale, FEMEN and Pussy Riot acted together for the first time. Why was this alliance necessary now?
The center of the action was the condemnation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. And nobody can speak about the Ukrainian experience better than Ukrainians themselves. That is why I was extremely happy that Inna Shevchenko agreed to participate together with the other FEMEN activists.
Inna had already supported Pussy Riot in Kyiv in 2012 with an action that cost her a great deal personally. I have enormous respect for her.
Many institutions continue defending the idea that art should remain autonomous from geopolitics. After Ukraine, does neutrality in the art system still exist?
The trap created by Buttafuoco and people like him lies precisely in presenting the invitation to Russia as a neutral gesture. But there is nothing neutral about opening the doors of European culture to fascist propaganda.
Russian strategists understand this Western weakness very well. They exploit the idea of neutrality in order to normalize their image while carrying out political whitewashing operations.
“Blood is Russia’s art” became one of the most powerful slogans of the protest. Were you trying to strike at the aesthetic comfort that often protects the international art system?
The slogan was invented by Inna Shevchenko. It is brilliant in the way it condenses complex political realities into immediate formulas.
When I was in Kharkiv last year, close to Christmas, I saw a church destroyed by bombs, with shattered domes and shrapnel marks everywhere.
The same Russians who sent me to prison for two years accusing me of offending religious feelings are now bombing churches. They kill mothers, children, civilians.
Ukrainians live this reality every day. Trying to speak about it while, only a few meters away, people drink champagne listening to electronic music inevitably creates a fracture.
Looking at the public reactions in front of the Russian Pavilion, do you think fear, discomfort, and tension can be politically more useful than consensus within contemporary art?
The people I spoke with were enthusiastic about the action. I did not see fear. And if somebody got scared, they probably need to toughen up a little.
The world of 2026 shows us images every day that are infinitely more terrifying than a few girls in pink balaclavas jumping in front of a pavilion.
In the Giardini of the Biennale, where for decades the diplomatic language of art has often attempted to absorb every conflict into the form of exhibition-making, STORM OF VENICE brought back something much harder to neutralize: the political body of war inside the European cultural space.
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