Russian Artist Who Nailed His Balls To Moscow’s Red Square Is At It Again, Slices Off His Ear

Last year, Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky expressed his disdain for the Soviet regime by nailing his balls to Moscow’s Red Square. The Inquisitr wrote a featured article on the situation too, in which his reasons for the defiant act is a metaphor for apathy, political indifference and fatalism of contemporary Russian society. We even included a very graphic (yet censored) video of the act.

Now, Pyotr Pavlensky is standing up to the government again. This time, he sat on top of a wall naked while slicing part of his right ear off. The news report from Russia can be seen in the video attached below.

According to an article by UPI, Pyotr Pavlensky cut off his ear lobe on top of the city wall on Sunday to specifically protest his country putting political dissidents in psychiatric wards. This is in response when a man named Mikhail Kosenko was put in a psychiatric ward back in April after he was convicted of rioting and assaulting a police officer during a protest in 2012, as detailed by The Guardian. Amnesty International actually called his admittance to a psychiatric ward a return to the Soviet-era practice of putting political dissidents in wards.

Eventually, Pyotr Pavlensky was taken in by police after he cut off his lobe. It is also reported that he is a-okay for the time being and is expected to be discharged from the hospital shortly.

RYOT reported more details about the situation, including Pyotr Pavlensky’s statement, which he wrote on his wife’s Facebook prior to his demonstration.

“By again using psychiatry for political goals, the police give themselves the power to separate the sane from the insane. Armed with psychiatric diagnoses, the bureaucrat in a white lab coat cuts off from society those pieces that prevent him from establishing a monolithic dictate of a single, mandatory norm for everyone.”

It should also be reported that Pavlensky kept in line with his statement. After he cut off his ear, he was given a psych exam. It is actually the third time he’s been subjected to one, and with all three, he passed as “sane” too. Yet this is a man who not only nailed his balls to Moscow’s Red Square, but sewn his lips shut and wrapped himself naked in a barbed wire “cocoon” just to make a statement.

Now that you’ve read the news on the Russian artist who cut off his ear to make a statement, what do you think? Is he a visionary fighting for the people or a crazy person mutilating himself for attention?

[Image via Facebook/Oksana Shalygina]