Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova’s art has been attacked at OK Linz Museum below is a statement for the artist.
My Pussy Riot Sex Dolls installation was attacked this past weekend in the chapel of the Holy Virgin at the OK Linz Museum in Linz, Austria. The glass door of the chapel was smashed on the eve of Mary’s conception—a symbolic date that cannot be ignored. This chapel has long been a secular space, integrated into the OK Linz Museum of Contemporary Art.
This act of fundamentalist aggression is a rupture aimed at the ideals of enlightenment, secularism, and free expression.
This attack is not an isolated event. Earlier this year, Esther Strauß’s Crowning, a sculpture portraying the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus, was beheaded at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Linz. The pattern is clear: there is an intensifying backlash against art that dares to question traditional narratives surrounding the roles of women in faith and, beyond faith, in culture at large.
Pussy Riot Sex Dolls is a child of love, an act of care, and a celebration of sisterhood. I bought the used sex dolls from Facebook Marketplace and sex forums because I felt compassion for the dolls and wanted to give them a second life. With the help of many—including my talented co-creator, Chinese drag queen Niohuru X—I transformed the sex dolls into sculptures depicting Pussy Riot activists. I placed the dolls in the chapel of the Holy Virgin because I believe feminists are sacred, and I’m convinced that the Virgin Mary is a feminist too.
Following the attack, we have chosen to keep the Sex Dolls on display in the chapel. The shattered glass will remain—a haunting reminder of both the fragility and resilience of art and the freedoms it symbolizes.
I thank the team in Linz for their unwavering commitment to preserving and protecting this work.
xx Nadya Tolokonnikova
Statement by Michaela Seiser, OK Linz curator:
“We are glad that Nadya Tolokonnikova’s work was not seriously damaged. It is important to us to return the work to its original location as quickly as possible in consultation with the artist. The message is clear: attempting to destroy the work will not result in it disappearing from the chapel. As soon as the glass door is repaired, the figures will return there, and the broken floor will become part of the installation. The fact that works of art trigger controversial discussions is entirely desirable, but when it turns into violence, it is highly problematic. It was only in July this year that Esther Strauss’ sculpture “Crowning” in Linz’s Mariendom, which depicts a Madonna giving birth, had its head chopped off in a brutal act of vandalism. Considering this, it seems to be mainly feminist works and messages that trigger such hatred, which is alarming.”
About Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova’s RAGE exhibition:
RAGE. Nadya Tolokonnikova / Pussy Riot – January 6th, 2025, OK Linz Museum
“The most radical act of rebellion today is to relearn how to dream and to fight for that dream.”
– Nadya Tolokonnikova
Nadya Tolokonnikova, an artist who is the founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot, has long been persecuted in Russia for her conceptual performances and artistic protest against the Putin regime. Her performance Punk Prayer in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, recognized by The Guardian as one of the most important artworks of the twenty-first century, ended for her and her colleagues with imprisonment for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”
OK LINZ presents Nadya Tolokonnikova’s her haunting works dealing with resistance, repression, and patriarchy for the first time to the European public. Tolokonnikova’s oeuvre encompasses objects, installations, and performative works in which she processes her traumatic experiences during her life under Putin. Out of a state of repression, she has developed a visual language that rebels against aesthetical and political realities: anarchic and radical, yet also moving and witty.
“RAGE” is the name of Tolokonnikova’s last video work filmed in Russia. The filming was raided by the police, the crew was able to steal just a few shots before everyone was arrested. In 2021 Alexei Navalny was arrested after coming back to Russia from Germany, where he got treated for being poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok. “RAGE” was released a few days after Navalny’s arrest in 2021: Pussy Riot called to release Navalny and other political prisoners immediately.
The exhibition spotlights a selection of Situationist actions by Pussy Riot. At the center is Tolokonnikova’s 2022 performance Putin’s Ashes in which she joined forces with twelve women from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia who experienced repression and aggression at the hands of the Russian president to burn a portrait of Vladimir Putin in a desert, collecting the ashes in small bottles.
Sculptures made from used sex dolls embody the Pussy Riot characters with their typical colorful balaclavas. They stand for the global network of resistance that Pussy Riot has become today.
“This art is a weapon,” says Tolokonnikova of her works, analyzing and exploring in this way the role that her art and she herself can play in the context of international power structures.
“Being from Russia brings me pain. Most of my life, even after 2 years imprisonment following my art protest, I chose to stay in Russia, even though I had plenty of opportunities to immigrate, I tried to change Russia, make it a country that I would be proud of – peaceful, prosperous, friendly, democratic, loving, a country that values human life, art and happiness. First with Voina Group, later with Pussy Riot, I’ve been in performance art since 2007, for 17 long years – years filled with joy of protest and comradery, harassment, arrests. I watched my friends being murdered and revolutions suffocating under Putin’s boot.“
– Nadya Tolokonnikova
Tolokonnikova’s Putin’s Ashes art installation at Deitch Gallery in January 2023 propelled her into a new criminal case and put her on said most wanted criminal list. Her exhibition traveled to [CONTAINER] Santa Fe, Dallas Contemporary, and continues to museums throughout the world. In her inspiring TED Talk, she tells the story of her imprisonment and shares what motivates her resistance; delivering a powerful message to Putin himself. @nadya
