ABSTRACT
The art action that has attracted by far the most attention in Russia in recent years is Petr Pavlenskii's Threat, which was performed in November 2015. Pavlenskii stands out as the next step after Pussy Riot in the evolution of Russian art. Pavlenskii himself mentions Chris Burden, who died in 2015, as a source of inspiration. Pavlenskii's most recent performance took place on 9 November 2015, when he took himself to the Lubyanka, headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service and former KGB, lit petrol he had poured on one of its wooden doors and posed for a photograph holding the empty petrol can. A video clip was also made of the action and of Pavlenskii's arrest. The prominent contemporary Russian gallery owner and curator Marat Gelman called the work The Door to Hell, alluding to both Dante's Divine Comedy and the important symbolism of doors in the Russian Orthodox Church.
