'Captain Medvedev' and More Russian Protest Art
Mikhail Metzel
In Yekaterinburg, street artist Slava created two mosaic portraits of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. Pedestrians could interchange the pieces or take a chunk of the mosaic off a nail to expose layers beneath. Under the tiles representing skin and facial muscles, Slava had fixed a bare wooden board with the message, “Hello Suckers.” The artist described his concept as “time for revenge…tear off a piece of the God.” A paper pinned next to Putin’s portrait warned onlookers, “Be careful, his body is protected with various sharp spikes. That should not stop you, right?”
Anonymous Moscow street art group Monolog has been papering the city with cheeky posters, including this one of Medvedev—Russia’s technology-loving president who promised a reset with the West—in a Captain America outfit with an iPad in place of a shield. The words on his chest declare: “Captain Russia. The First Ruler.”
Monolog
Another Monolog project: changing a giant billboard of supermodel Naomi Campbell advertising the “Legend of Tsvetnoi” (a complex of Russian luxury apartments) into a picture of U.S. President Barack Obama advertising “The Legend of Libya,” with the phrase “Who else is alive in the house?” The billboard was taken down the same day by Moscow authorities.
Monolog
Monolog’s projects often poke fun at the Kremlin: in this poster, titled New collection Spring-Summer 2011, Putin and Medvedev look ready for a preppy day at Wimbledon. The group hung copies of the poster on bus stops, street walls, and even on big billboards beside government headquarters in downtown Moscow.
Monolog
In April, Soviet-style posters featuring Nikita Mikhalkov—a film director famous for his pro-Kremlin ideologies—appeared in Moscow’s Kozikhinsky alley. Residents of the neighborhood had been protesting against Mikhalkov and his construction company for weeks over plans for a new hotel. Municipal services managed to remove the posters quickly, but the Monolog artists responsible for the stunt have managed to remain anonymous.
Monolog
In Perm, Russia’s fast-developing capital of contemporary art, the Red People art installation featured enormous square sculptures of identical red men sitting on the roofs of state buildings. The artwork offended local bureaucrats, who complained to the governor.
Russian street-art group Voina has gained notoriety for its pieces, such as this one titled Dick Captured by FSB. The installation—a 60-foot-long phallus painted on a cantilevered bridge in Saint Petersburg—rose erect when the bridge opened in the middle of the night. It was designed to be seen from the headquarters of the FSB, the successor to the KGB. While several of the group’s ringleaders when on trial for “hooliganism,” Russia’s Ministry of Culture nevertheless awarded Voina with a prestigious prize for the artwork.
Voina
The most controversial of Voina’s performances involved artists overturning seven police cars around Saint Petersburg. It was titled Palace Revolution.
In November of 2008, Voina members projected a skull-and-crossbones onto the White House in Moscow, to commemorate the anniversary of the Great October Revolution (also known as Red October), the Bolshevik uprising of 1917. Members say the performance was meant to symbolize that “art belongs to the people."
Voina
This action in September 2008, staged by Voina, was designed to provoke Moscow’s then-mayor Yury Luzhkov, who had often been accused of corruption and who was widely seen as being a puppet of the Kremlin. The group named it for a protest in 1825 against Nicolas I’s assumption of the tsarist throne, where the rebels demanded a constitution with civil liberties and freedom for enslaved peasants. The artists unfurled a banner that proclaimed, “Nobody gives a f**k about [Pavel] Pestel,” the charismatic rebel who joined the Decembrists and was later executed for his part in the uprising.
Voina
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