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Document Details : Title: Het politiek-lichamelijke gebaar van ‘blasfemische’ kunst Subtitle: Pussy Riots punkgebed in genderkritisch perspectief Author(s): KORTE, Anne-Marie Journal: Tijdschrift voor Theologie Volume: 55 Issue: 2 Date: 2015 Pages: 169-192 DOI: 10.2143/TVT.55.2.3197435 Abstract : ‘Moeder Gods, verdrijf Poetin!’ Met dit punkgebed, dat Pussy Riot op 21 februari 2012 in de Christus Verlosserkathedraal in Moskou aanhief, bekritiseerde Pussy Riot openlijk de steeds innigere banden tussen de regering van Poetin en de leiders van de Russisch-Orthodoxe Kerk. Het optreden maakte deel uit van een reeks politieke protestuitingen tegen het Poetin-regime van dit Moskouse politieke kunstcollectief. In de maanden ervoor trad de groep op verschillende openbare plaatsen in de hoofdstad op met ultrakorte flash concerten in stadsguerrilla-stijl. De voorstelling in de kathedraal (zingen, schreeuwen, springen en knielen) duurde slechts veertig seconden; de groepsleden werden onmiddellijk tegengehouden door bewakers en kerkpersoneel en verwijderd uit de – op dat moment bijna lege – kerk. Dit korte ‘politieke gebaar’ had echter een enorme impact: in de Russische media werd het optreden vergeleken met ‘het effect van een bomexplosie’. De leiders van de Russische regering en de Russisch-Orthodoxe Kerk reageerden extreem fel en ongekend repressief op het punkgebed. Drie vrouwelijke leden van de groep werden gearresteerd en hun werd, volgens de formulering in het Russische wetboek van strafrecht, ‘hooliganisme gemotiveerd door religieuze haat’ ten laste gelegd. De aanklagers beschuldigden hen van het kwaadwillig vernederen van de gevoelens en overtuigingen van de orthodoxe christenen en van het ‘onderuithalen van de spirituele fundamenten van de staat’. Op 17 augustus 2012 werden de drie vrouwen schuldig bevonden en veroordeeld tot twee jaar gevangenisstraf. ‘Mother of God, Drive Putin Out!’ The Punk Prayer of the political art collective Pussy Riot, performed in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on 21 February 2012, openly defied the tightening bonds between the Putin-government and the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, and was met by extremely critical and unprecedented repressive reactions by the leading figures of both instances. Three female members of the group were arrested and charged with ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ as stated in the Russian Criminal Code. The prosecutors officially accused them of maliciously humiliating the feelings and beliefs of the Orthodox Christians and ‘disparaging the spiritual foundation of the state’. On 17 August 2012, the three women were found guilty and were sentenced to two years imprisonment. Within a year after the conviction of the Pussy Riot members a bill explicitly prohibiting religious insult – which did not exist before in post-communist Russia – was adopted by the Federation Council (Russia’s Upper Chamber of Parliament), with reference to the Pussy Riot case. In this contribution I raise the question why at present the use of religious scenes, imagery, or ritual by feminist artists like Madonna, Lady Gaga and Pussy Riot seems particularly prone to provoke accusations of blasphemy or sacrilege. Following Brent Plate’s analysis of the contingent and composite character of blasphemy accusations, I refuse to reduce such accusations to mere category mistakes or to the authoritarian abuse of political power. Moving beyond Plate, however, I investigate why it is specifically gendered corporeality and non-heteronormative sexuality that so easily become targeted in contemporary accusations of blasphemy and sacrilege. The controversy generated by such deliberate interplays of corporeal/sexual and religious themes, I argue, is suggestive of the interrelation of religious, sexual, and ethnic identities and of the public fights over them in modern (post)secular societies. Performances like those of Madonna and Pussy Riot contest the demarcation line between the religious and the secular, and challenge an antecedent relegation of both religion and sexuality to the private sphere. By contextualising and comparing the charges against Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer this article shows the deeply hybrid and ambiguous character of this performance, which is constitutive of its aim and function as feminist political protest. In this act of protest, political analysis and theological arguments, secular and religious points of view, public and private interests, and rational and affective interpellations are combined. This complexity is underlined by the very style and composition of this gesture of protest, with its many deliberately chosen multi-media details of time, location, bodily appearance, and movements, arrangements of sound and music, and its ingenious ritual and symbolic allusions, all forcing the audience to distinguish between sincerity and deception. Most interestingly, in the Punk Prayer an unusual and uncanny appeal to Russian Orthodox ritual and aesthetics can be found. By its appeal to Mary, Russia’s patroness and Holy Mother, to chase Putin away, and join the feminists, this act forms a paradoxical and scandalous prayer indeed. Also the enactment of this prayer in the Cathedral, directly in front of the iconostasis, in brightly coloured clothes, combined with a confusing mixture of respectful and disrespectful gestures, fitting and unfitting singing and shouting reflects the deep ambiguous status and meaning of this performance. The appeal to Mary is both an act of parrhesia (speaking openly and uncompromisingly about current affairs) and an act of faith (a vision of hope expressed with a longing in which all the senses and means of expressions are involved). |
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