Will Pussy Riot Perform During Art Basel in Miami Beach?

The activist band is making an exclusive appearance.

From Pussy Riot's new video, "Straight Outta Vagina." Photo via YouTube.

New York gallery The Hole is reportedly shopping around for sponsors to raise money to fly Pussy Riot, Russian feminist punk rockers, to South Florida. But staging events during Miami’s ultra-packed art week comes at a price.

According to Page Six, a “minimum $10,000 sponsorship” deal will be required to cover the band’s expenses. But with only days remaining before the start of “the art world’s spring break,” can they put it together in time?

Organizers are luring potential sponsors with promises of extensive media coverage if they raise the funds. Indeed the band’s confrontational behavior and trademark colorful balaclavas tend to make headlines wherever they go.

Pussy Riot rose to prominence in 2012 with public performances protesting Russian president Vladimir Putin that resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich. The incident was highlighted by the international news media as an example of Putin’s authoritarian approach to silencing critics. The event propelled Pussy Riot and its members to national notoriety and international fame.

Since serving a two year prison sentence the musicians-turned-activists have continued to raise awareness on a number of important social issues, including women’s rights, LGBT rights, freedom of speech, and Putin’s increasingly autocratic governance of Russia.

Whilst Pussy Riot has previously focused their performances and activism on the inequities in their home country, the band has recently broadened their focus beyond the borders of Russia.

Using music, music videos, and social media channels, the group has repeatedly criticized the American president-elect Donald Trump for his numerous misogynistic outbursts during the presidential campaign.

On the day after the presidential election, Pussy Riot members encouraged dissent amongst Americans in a poignant tweet referencing their own imprisonment. “You’ll overcome,” they wrote in solidarity.

UPDATE: Kathy Grayson, the owner of The Hole, confirmed to artnet News in an email that the group would be performing and giving a talk for an invitation-only “political happening” capped at 500 people.


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