Gallery Weekend Berlin: Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova shows the prison cell Putin put her in

Nadya Tolokonnikov was supposed to enjoy Berlin's spring sunshine on Saturday and speak with German art star Anne Imhof as part of the Gallery Weekend at the Neue Nationalgalerie. But the Pussy Riot activist, musician, and performance artist ultimately canceled her visit, as the risk was too great.

Since 2023, she has been on Russia's "Most Wanted" list. Because she fears for her life, no one has been allowed to know where she lives or whereabouts. The Russian lives in exile. And due to Trump's erratic entry and exit regulations, critics can no longer be sure what is happening at the border, at airports, and transit zones, and in Tolokonnikova's specific case, whether she might be extradited to Russia.

Her art, however, can be seen in Berlin. At the Nagel Draxler Gallery in Mitte, Tolokonnikova had a replica of the small cell in which she was imprisoned for two years built. It's a very small room, with silver bars. Because of her 2012 "Punk Prayer" protest, when she and other Pussy Riot activists danced in Moscow's Church of the Savior in colorful knitted peaked caps and asked God to remove Putin from office, she was imprisoned 500 kilometers from Moscow in Mordovia. She was 23 at the time, and her daughter was four. Tolokonnikova went on hunger strike several times and fought against the conditions in the prison camp.

Nadya Tolokonnikova's art in Berlin: "I will survive."

Today, Tolokonnikova, born in Siberia, is 35 and perhaps Russia's best-known critic. Engraved on a wooden stool in the cell at the exhibition is the inscription ACAB ('All police officers are bastards'). " Putin's Ashes" is also there, in small glass bottles. The artwork originates from an art project: she set fire to a three-by-three-meter portrait of the Russian leader in a video, and the ashes are now here. "It was extremely satisfying to burn him," Tolokonnikova said in an interview.

Since the event, she has been wanted. The exhibition is now also called "Wanted." A mural reads "yes sex is great but have you ever fucked the system? <3 <3 <3." And the courageous artist's life motto is carved into steel plates in Cyrillic script: "I will survive."

Nadya Tolokonnikova, "Wanted." Galerie Nagel Draxler, Weydingerstraße 2/4, from May 3 to June 6, 2025