Anna Nemtsova Jan 6, 2012 4:45 AM EST

An art collective put a phallus on a bridge and burnt a police truck on New Year’s Eve. Can they truly call their protests art?

For a group of artists, academics, and philosophers from Moscow and St. Petersburg, the war against the Russian government started six years ago, when the group formed an underground art club called Voina (which means “the war”). Their aim: declare war against police abuse and the government’s highly publicized authoritarian methods.

On May 29, 2009, Voina’s members carried guitars, amplifiers, and microphones to a federal courtroom during the hearing of Andrei Yerofeyev, a Russian curator being prosecuted for his Forbidden Art exhibition. They then performed a song called “All Cops Are Bastards” in front of the judge. Later, they projected a 120-foot-high skull-and-crossbones symbol onto the Russian White House, in what they called a warning message for corrupt authorities. In the summer of 2010, Voina artists painted an enormous phallus on the 200-foot-tall Leteyny drawbridge in St. Petersburg a few minutes before it elevated—in full view of the headquarters of the FSB, the successor of the KGB Voina proclaimed that the phallus was aroused by the hierarchy of Putin’s power.

Voina sees its role as a bellwether for Russia’s mass conscience, and by all accounts, Russian hipsters have enjoyed the group’s radical freedom of expression, with other guerilla performance artists joining in the subversive protest mission. In fact, for the past six years, many members of Russia’s more mainstream political opposition groups have sympathized with Voina’s unconventional methods.

That changed on New Year’s Eve, when Voina’s activists dedicated what they called “a street performance” to the group’s imprisoned members and all Russian political prisoners. They burned a police truck in the courtyard of a St. Petersburg police station, devoting their “fire gift” to Russian political prisoners.

A video claims to show members of Voina setting vehicles on fire in the courtyard of a St. Petersburg police station

As with all the previous projects by the art guerillas, a detailed description, photos, and a video of the act (arson, in this case)—was uploaded to a Web page by one of Voina’s ideologues, Alex Plucer–Sarno. In an email interview with The Daily Beast, the underground artists confirmed that on New Year’s Eve, Voina’s leader, Oleg Vorotnikov, took his 9-months-pregnant wife, Natalya Sokol; their 2-year-old son, Kasper; and Voina activist Leonid Nikolayev, dressed in a Russian Santa Claus costume, to burn the police truck. These are the same types of trucks that have transported each of the protesters to jail at least once.

“What do people normally get for a New Year’s gift? Shampoo? Or a bottle of whisky? Imagine, you are powerless, locked up in jail, and somebody gives you a gorgeous, fiery present,” Vorotnikov explained. As many as 20 legal cases have been filed against Voina group activists, and yet, says Vorotnikov, “We are up for the war. The war begins right now.” If burning a police truck is art, one might ask, then what is war?

Russian opposition leaders and civil-society figures see Voina’s act of arson as damaging and disturbing to the current political situation. Over the past few weeks, tens of thousands of Russian activists have taken to the streets in Moscow and other cities to protest against Putin’s domination of Russian politics. To Boris Nemtsov, one of the more conventional opposition leaders, Voina’s radical act has served to undermine the peaceful movement that has awakened in Russia since last month’s reportedly falsified election results.

“Half a year ago, when the country’s protest was deeply asleep, I would understand Voina,” Nemtsov says. “But today, when 100,000 people protest against the Kremlin on the streets, Voina gives Putin good reason to say, ‘See, they are nothing but criminals,’ about the opposition in general.”

One of the inspiring figures behind Moscow’s mass anti-Putin protests, theater critic and satirist Victor Shenderovich, long ago stopped seeing the antics by Voina as aesthetically attractive. “Voina’s latest performances—turning police cars upside down on Palace Square, spraying police with urine, or burning police trucks—look tasteless from an artistic point of view, unlike their previous art projects.” Shenderovich said that by burning the police truck, Voina performed an act of trivial hooliganism at a delicate historical moment for Russian opposition.

To Vorotnikov and his wife, aesthetics and diplomacy have long ceased being a part of the discussion. Since they take their 2-year-old son with them to each “action,” Kaspar has been detained by police three times; once, last spring, Kaspar was injured when a police officer grabbed him out of his father’s hands. Vorotnikov said that on Nov. 15, 2010, several police officers broke into the Moscow apartment where the Voina family was staying with friends and threatened to send Kaspar into social services. According to Sokol, police confiscated her passport, medical insurance document, driver’s license, and her Moscow State University employee’s certificate—leaving her without any legal documents or access to neonatal care when she gives birth later this month.

Despite the arrests and public outrage, Voina’s war goes on. The group deals selectively with unknown underground civil leaders and anti-fascist and anti-Kremlin Left Front–movement activists, sticking to its agenda of overturning Putin’s regime. It would seem that Voina should be happy about the mass rallies all across the country and opposition declaring the same goals as Voina. But that’s hardly the case. The group’s activists feel frustrated with the opposition. “The opposition leaders compromise with the Kremlin, they discredit the spirit of protest, people’s anger. The opposition’s goal is to become a part of the existing system and not to fight it,” Vorotnikov says, sarcastically complimenting the authorities for “allowing” the protests, so people’s anger “flies out of the chimney, like a puff of steam.”

If burning a police truck is art, one might ask, then what is war?

Internationally, Voina’s ideology—defined by the group as “an anti-consumerist lifestyle marked by alternative living strategies, such as dumpster diving”—is publicized more significantly worldwide than it is at home. Giant “Voina Wanted” banners can be seen in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany. As German film director Artur Zmijewski, a Voina supporter at the Berlin Biennale, put it, “Art is free, and Voina activists are not just saying words, they act to prove the idea.”

Last November, the Berlin Biennale appointed Voina’s activists, including Vorotnikov,  Sokol, and their son, as the festival’s curators. That, of course, was before they burnt the police truck.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/06/russian-protesters-use-art-as-act-of-war.html

Today the penal chamber of St. Petersburg City Court overturned the arrest warrant against Natalia Sokol issued earlier by Dzerzhinsky District Court. The case was returned to Dzerzhinsky District Court to be reviewed by a different judge.

Natalia Sokol (Kozlenok) with son Kasper

According to the City Court, the original arrest warrant decision was deeply flawed, as judge Brazhnikova had failed to give proper consideration to the case and eliminate the apparent inconsistencies. In particular, no explanation was given as to how the 8 months pregnant Sokol could influence the investigation if left at large. The investigators claimed that Sokol had been on the federal wanted list since August, her whereabouts unknown. Yet the same investigators also reported that Sokol was detained and questioned on October 18th. As for investigator Rud’s claim that Natalia had ignored her scheduled appointments with him, the penal chamber pointed out, “not a single document was presented to support these claims.” The City Court also challenged judge Brazhnikova’s conclusion that Sokol was “abusing her status as a pregnant woman.” Another shortcoming cited was Brazhnikova’s failure to consider the fate of Natalia’s infant child in the event of her arrest.

Free Voina editors would like to clarify that today’s ruling does not change Natalia Sokol’s status as an internationally wanted person, as the latter does not require a court order and was in fact established in a separate decision by the Investigations Committee. 

DER SPIEGEL №51/2011
By Walter Mayr in St. Petersburg

Members of the Russian art collective Voina are supposed to serve as associate curators for the 2012 Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, which begins this spring in Germany. Voina’s work is drawing attention around the world,  but international arrest warrants have been issued for two of the its leaders.

Voina in town

The message arrives at the last minute via email, and the tone is commanding. Meeting place: McDonald’s. The conditions: No mobile phones or recording devices. The meeting time: now.

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Natalia Sokol (Kozlenok) with son Kasper

December 7th, 2011 — St. Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court decided today to issue an arrest warrant for Voina member Natalia Sokol (Kozlenok). Natalia, who is in her 8th month of pregnancy, has been charged with insulting and using violence against police officers (articles 319 and 318 of the Criminal Code). The charges were first revealed to the defense during a court session yesterday. Natalia has been a federally wanted person since November, and she was declared internationally wanted last Monday.

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Kozlenok and Vor, in hiding, listen to the news

December 6th, 2011 - Kuybyshevky District Court of St. Petersburg was set today to rule on the investigators’ motion to arrest Voina activist Natalia Sokol (Kozlenok). It was previously understood by the defense that Kozlenok was facing charges under article 319 of the Criminal Code (insulting a public official). However, as was discovered during today’s hearing, she has in fact been charged under article 318 of the Criminal Code (using violence against a public official), as well as article 319. Moreover, she was declared a federally wanted person on November 11th, and later an internationally wanted person on December 5th.

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Kuybushevsky District Court of St. Petersburg (Karavannaya st., 20) will decide tomorrow on whether to issue an arrest warrant for Voina activist Natalia Sokol (Kozlenok). The hearing will take place at 3 PM before judge A. P. Dondik.

Kozlenok is currently facing charges under article 319 of the Russian Criminal Code (insulting an authority figure) for allegedly dousing police officers with urine during the March 31st, 2011 protest rally in St. Petersburg. However, according to Kozlenok’s attorney Dmitri Dinze, article 319 does not constitute sufficient legal grounds for an arrest warrant. This could mean that the police have in fact brought additional charges against Kozlenok without notifying her attorney or herself. Such a situation would be unlawful and the hearing would, theoretically, have to be adjourned. However, Voina is concerned about judge Dondik’s impartiality in this matter.

Index on Censorship magazine (The Art Issue, Vol 40, NO. 3 2011):

Widespread frustration with the establishment has fostered a brand of political street art that’s taking the country by storm. Nick Sturdee reports

Scandal goes down well in the art world, and the organisers of this April’s prestigious state Innovation art award in Moscow clearly decided to make the most of their moment. The queues outside the cavernous Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture – Konstantin Melnikov’s 1927 constructivist bus depot refurbished as a gallery for Dasha Zhukova, Roman Abramovich’s wife, and graced by Amy Winehouse at its opening in 2008 – were to be expected; so of course were the chic crowd and the TV cameras. But the on-stage video installation of revolution in Cairo, Japanese tsunami, and London student riots – accompanied by epic dissonant swells and jabbing chords, lyrics shouted by a male voice choir and an albino’s falsetto solo – was an unmistakable statement. We live in momentous times, Russia is no exception (or hopes not to be) and Russian art is ready for the challenge.

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Kozlenok:

Ulf Kalkreuth left the hotel before us. He was filming us very closely as we exited the hotel.

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At 4:30 AM today, Natalia Sokol and her son Kasper were released from custody. Natalia had to sign a personal recognizance, requiring her to meet with the investigators again at 7 PM today. It is unclear whether she plans to fulfill the obligation.

Previously: Natalia Sokol and baby Kasper detained in St. Petersburg

Vor got away from police in the night of Oct 18th, 2011

Oleg:

We had set up a meeting with journalists at the Alexander Haus hotel (27 Kryukov channel). The journalists were Ulf Kalkreuth and Igor Nedorezov, from the German ARD television.

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