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Pussy Riot featured in new NYC art exhibition; members planning to open New Balkan Women's Museum

Pussy Riot

Pussy Riot are known for combining art with activism so it makes sense that member Maria Alyokhina, along with other activist members, are planning to open the New Balkan Women’s Museum in Montenegro. She told Artnet, it’s a museum for women, by women, about women.  It will only feature female artists and will only employ female curators. Montenegro is known for being one of the least progressive Eastern European countries in terms of women’s rights, so this would be giving local female artists much needed exposure.

In the here and now, Maria and the rest of Pussy Riot are among the artists featured in NYC’s art exhibition, Recycling Religion, that’s at Chinatown’s WhiteBox Gallery now through January 17. This show looks at the role of religion in Russia and Eastern Europe and the control it has over popular culture.

Pussy Riot’s contribution to the exhibit is a 30-second video of “Punk Prayer,”  their now-famous neon balaclavas-clad performance at Orthodox Church in Moscow which led to the arrest of members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samucevich and Maria herself.  Additionally, Pussy Riot are being awarded the fourth annual WhiteBox/Richard Massey Foundation “Arts and Humanity Award.”

In addition to Pussy Riot’s piece, Recycling Religion features artists such as Alexander Kosolapov, Arsen Savadov, and Vladimir Kozin.

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