On June 30th, 2023, Nadya Tolokonnikova takes over CONTAINER to create a once-in-a-lifetime 5,000 sq. ft. immersive art exhibition THIS ART IS A HAMMER THAT SHAPES REALITY, turning it into an activist playground for the international premiere of her conceptual artworks, prison artifacts, as well as the New Mexico premiere of her first short film and original musical score, Putin’s Ashes.
New works include “Death By 1000 Cuts” (100 conceptual art pieces), “This Art is a Hammer That Shapes Reality” (23 conceptual art pieces), “Drink My Blood” (sculptural collage based on an original copy of Tolokonnikova’s freedom certificate), “Kill The Sexist!” and “Virgin Mary, Please Become a Feminist” (prints).
“Putin’s Ashes” short art film was born in August 2022 when Pussy Riot burned a giant portrait of Putin and then collected the ashes into vials to incorporate in ritualistic artworks. The performance landed Tolokonnikova on Putin’s Most Wanted list, and instigated an arrest warrant under the Russian “Pussy Riot Law.” Undeterred, Tolokonnikova bravely creates artwork as a way to turn tyranny against itself.
Nadya will for the first time be exhibiting her prison artifacts, including her prison paperwork and “Drink My Blood” sculptural collage (2021, mixed media: Tolokonnikova’s freedom certificate, needles, blood, stuffed animals) and “Death by 1000 Cuts” (2023) series – framed prison shivs she fashioned out of found materials–including prison bars–which were ground to resemble those ground against the cement of the Russian penal colony in which she was imprisoned for “hooliganism.” Conceptual art series “This Art is a Hammer That Shapes Reality”, an homage to Bertold Brecht, will be exhibited for the first time ever, at CONTAINER.
Through the alchemy of art, I transform pain and PTSD into resilience and hope. With each piece, I weave my experiences into a tapestry of healing. Art becomes the beacon that guides us out of the darkness, reminding us that even amidst the deepest wounds, there is the potential for transformation, strength, and a renewed sense of purpose.
– Nadya Tolokonnikova.
Relics, magical incantations and performative acts are a vital part of the work
said Tonya Turner Carroll, who along with her husband Michael Carroll opened CONTAINER in 2022.
Putin’s Regime is not the Only Thing Nadya is Disrupting
Pussy Riot disrupts the fine art world as well. Turner Carroll Gallery recently featured one work from Nadya’s Putin’s Ashes exhibition at the Dallas Art Fair and the electricity and excitement surrounding her work among curators and top-level collectors was palpable. Her fine arts work is striking a hard, compelling chord in the fine arts community. A recent Christie’s auction resulted in one of the top collections in the United States acquiring her work.
While working with artifacts, bottling ashes, and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony
I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world, and he has to be stopped immediately.
said Tolokonnikova.
Tolokonnikova’s growing stature in fine arts is helping to fuel her critically important efforts to build global awareness of political atrocities facing The Other in Russia and around the world. The Other is everyone who is not in a position of political power. The Other is everyone who is “different.” The Other is gay. The Other is female, feminist, democracy-oriented, and is like myriad others who live in oppression around the globe.
Michael Carroll, who studied in the former Soviet Union, says that
The Soviets published maps of their country with cities missing and roads not where they actually were. Putin inherited this playbook of deception. Tolokonnikova, like an Aikido master, takes the deception and reorients it to the truth.
Pussy Riot creator Nadya Tolokonnikova in Santa Fe, N.M., THIS ART IS A HAMMER THAT SHAPES REALITY, Free Ticketed Public Opening June 30, 2023, 5 – 7:00 pm GET YOU TICKET
CONTAINER – 1226 Flagman Way – Santa Fe, NM 8750 containertc.org
Extra:
June 30th, 10pm, Live Pussy Riot performance at Meow Wolf – details HERE.
June 29th, 3pm, Nadya Tolokonnikova will speak at New Mexico Museum of Art
About the artist
In 2012, artist Nadya Tolokonnikova gained global recognition and attention — and was sentenced to two years in prison — following “Punk Prayer,” an anti-Putin performance piece she and conspirators staged inside a cathedral in Moscow. She started a hunger strike protesting the conditions in which she was being held and was ultimately sent to a Siberian penal colony before being released in December 2013.
Tolokonnikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest art collective which now counts hundreds of people among its numbers. A longtime thorn in Putin’s side, she was declared a “foreign agent” by Russia in 2021 and has lived in exile ever since. She is also a cofounder of the independent news service and media outlet Mediazona and, as cofounder of UnicornDAO, was instrumental in raising more than $7 million via UkraineDAO. She has spoken before the US Congress, British Parliament and European Parliament. Among her many artistic achievements, she collaborated with Bansky on his “Dismaland” exhibition and created an immersive experience at the Saatchi Gallery in London. She is the author of Read & Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism.
ABOUT CONTAINER TURNER CARROLL: Opened in 2022, CONTAINER is a hybrid museum-gallery space and an important and unique development in the way people access art. CONTAINER is agile and responsive as a private venture, showing exhibitions at the forefront of contemporary artistic dialogs. CONTAINER is a function of Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For the past three decades, the Turner Carroll family has dedicated itself to championing visionary artists, and developing meaningful relationships with public institutions around the world. CONTAINER is a celebration and amplification of these partnerships and their deeply-held belief that Art Transforms. turnercarrollgallery.com/
