Carcass
On the 3rd May 2013, Pyotr Pavlensky performed a piece called The Carcass. The artist’s friends brought him, stripped of all his clothes but wrapped in layers of barbed wire, to the seat of the St Petersburg Assembly. Half-bent, motionless and silent – the artist remained in this “cocoon” and remained unreactive to the words and actions of the people around him. Policemen finally used pruning hooks to free the artist from the layers of barbed wire and brought him into the assembly building.
“The Carcass performance was aimed at demonstrating an individual’s position within the legal system. The reality of our life existence is such that any human who chooses to comply with the law is destined to exist as a silent animal. Barbed wire was first invented to keep farm animals inside their stable. The authorities use the same barbed wire to keep their subjects in check. In the first instance, the barbed wire is not literal – it entangles people within the legal system. Members of society are asked to voluntarily live as well-fed cattle. Those who refuse become hunted by the state, and are at the first opportunity captured and imprisoned behind literal barbed wire.”