Documenting / Performing the Vulnerable Body Pain and Agency in Works

This article explores the concepts of pain and agency in the photography series Case History (1997–1998) by the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov, and in four performance-actions (2012–2014) by the Russian performance-activist Petr Pavlensky. Although they represent different generations and respond to different historical contexts, Mikhailov and Pavlensky share a focus on the wounded body. Taking both the documentary and performative aspects of these artworks into account, Nordgaard argues that the wounded body stands forth as a body of agency which also reflects the social, political, and historical settings in which it exists. The relational consideration of the two artists therefore offers important insights for understanding post-Soviet Ukraine and present-day Russia, and reflects on the correlation between the private and the public body. By placing Mikhailov and Pavlensky in dialogue with a broader discussion on spectatorship and the role and significance of “shock imagery” and spectacle in contemporary media, the article further suggests why artworks depicting the body in pain have both an ethical and political function.

In September 2015 when the European refugee crisis was at its most pressing, a photograph of toddler Aylan Kurdi lying dead on a beach in Turkey circulated in international media.As Ad am Withnall of the Independent phrased it in a headline: "If these extraordinarily powerful images of a dead Syrian child washed up on a beach don't change Europe's attitude to refugees, what will?" Withnall added, " [t]he Independent has taken the decision to publish these images because, a mo ng the often glib words about the 'ongoing migrant crisis,' it is all too easy to forget the reality o f the desperate situation facing many refugees." 1 Fr o m Whithnall's point of view, the distressing image moved beyond the confines of the seemingly habitual everyday reporting of human tragedy.Shortly after, ho we ver , o nline ne ws s ite s commented on the image taken by photojournalist Nilüfer Demir, only this time the headlines did not express a call for mercy and action but were rather s et o n e x po sing the truth behind the image: "Aylan Kurdi's father denies claims he was a people s m ug g le r a nd driving boat that capsized and led to son's death;" "Europe's policy did not kill Aylan Kur di;" "'Aylan's father just wanted better dental treatment': Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi's b r utal claim that drowned Syrian boy wasn't a 'real refugee'." 2 In the months following the death of Kurdi, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published several cartoon versions of the image, accompanied by headlines such as "What would've become of A ylan ha d he g r own up?-A groper." 3 Suddenly the tragic fate of the helpless three -year-old was used to complicate the narrative of the European crisis: as if the image caption that once read "T his is tragic" now stated "This is tragic, but . . .." On the one hand, the example above shows how we believe that im a ge s c o uld ha v e the power to change attitudes.This stance aligns with William Stott's claims about social documentary photography of the 1930s, which he stated "encourages social im pr ov eme nt" by making us feel implicated through portraying social situations that may b e a lte r ed . 4O n the other hand, some of the photograph's reception suggests that such hop es a r e f utile in the context of contemporary media.In our ever-changing media reality, the distinction between media-producer and media-consumer is increasingly ambiguous: interactive s o cial media frequently intersect with traditional news reporting, and online self-pub lis hing b lur s the boundary between critical journalism reporting and opinion pieces.While one may arg ue that such a media landscape supports openness, transparency, and diverse outlooks, it could also distort the distinction between reality and fiction, and news reporting and 1 A dam Whithnall, "I f thes e extraordinarily powerful images of a dead Syrian c hild was hed up on a beac h don't c hange E urope's attitude to refugees, what will?," I ndependent September 2 , 2 0 15, http://www.independent.co.uk/.

Documenting/Performing the Vulnerable Body
Pain and Agency in Works by Boris Mikhailov and Petr Pavlensky Ingrid Nordgaard entertainment, thus slowly erasing the difference between media consumption for informational and for entertainment purposes.This is perhaps especially true in c a s es tha t involve human suffering or pain; we have become so accustomed to seeing pain in the media that the potential of an empathic viewing of the tragedy and despair of others seems lost -a statement that has certainly become a cliché, but that still rings true.
The fact that the image of Aylan Kurdi triggered such an overwhelming response discloses how public display of pain is inherently connected to discussions of ethics, voyeurism, general media consumption, and spectacle. 5More im p or tant, the p ho tog r ap h reveals how fragile the wounded body is when captured without k nowing, una ble to g iv e consent to its own visibility or simply becoming part of larger narratives over which it has no control.The appearance of presumed pain in such documentary images may help us conceptualize, understand, and provide photographic evidence for global suffering , b ut it is also too easy to ignore its presence or to question it-as seen in the case of the Syrian toddler.
This paper explores the relationships between photography, agency, spectatorship , a nd pain in works by the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov (b.1938) and the Russian performance-activist Petr Pavlensky (b.1984).These two contemporary artists have addressed the body in pain and its visual presentation using both photography and live bodily performance.Representing different generations and working in differe nt s o cial a nd art historical contexts, Mikhailov and Pavlensky nevertheless shar e the g o al o f c a p turing bodily vulnerability and revealing the physical impact of social and political injustic e o n the human body.In Mikhailov's photograph series Case History (1997-98), ho mele ss p eo p le openly exhibit their wounded, naked bodies in front of his camera.Pavlensky, in the performance-actions Seam (2012), Carcass (2013), Fixation (2013), and Segregation (2014), mutilates his own body publically in some of the most symbolically laden locations in Russia.Although what follows is not an explicit comparison of the two ar tis ts, a r e l atio nal consideration is productive because both Mikhailov and Pavlensky refuse to present the wounded body as a powerless victim.Instead, I argue that the wounded body in their wo r ks represents a way of exposing and contending with external factors that may be harmf ul no t only to the individual, but to all of us.It is my hope that a discussion of the two a r tists will offer new perspectives on the making and distribution of photographic image s o f b o d ies in pain, and on the fraught correlation between the artist, the photographic s ubj ec t, a nd the spectator.
5 D ebord c laims that with the intens e foc us on produc tion in the mo dern age, everything has bec ome mere repres entation c haracterized by s pectacle, "a s oc ial relation between people that is mediated by images ."G uy D ebord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans .Ken Knabb (Berkeley: Bureau of P ublic Secrets, 2 0 1 4), 1 1 .I ndirectly following D ebord's notion of the global s pectacle, P hil C arney argues that photography is a "s oc ial practice of produc tion" and a s trong s oc ial forc e; the photograph produc es more than it repres ents.Whether or not photographic images are depicting wh at is "real" or mere fantas y is bes ide the point, as C arney is more interested in s howing how photographic images are parts of how we define our lives .C arney, however, does not linger on the negative impacts of the (photographic) s pec tacle, but like D ebord he points out that it defines the way we live.T he reality of s oc ial practice c an indeed be s een through the photographic spectacle, but it is als o produc ed by it: the photograph mus t be s een as a performative forc e. See P hil C arney, "C rime, P unishment, and the Forc e of P hotographic Spec tacle" in Framing Crime: Cultural Criminology and the I mage, eds .Keith J .H ayward and M ike P resdee (N ew Y ork: Routledge, 2 0 10).Sus an Sontag, among others, has c riticized the c oncept of s pec tacle: "[t]o s peak of reality bec oming a s pectacle is a breathtaking provincialism.I t universalizes the viewing habits of a s mall, educ ated population living in the ric h part of the world, where news has been c onverted into entertainment."See Sus an Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (N ew Y ork: P icador, 2 003), 1 1 0. Before discussing Mikhailov and Pavlensky on their own terms, some context should be given regarding the photographic medium and photography 's presumed relationship to p a in and its representation.Moreover, it is also worth asking what type of response such im a ge s may trigger in the viewer.In her famous account On Photography (1977), Susan Sontag claims that photographic images have lost their ability to trigger an ethical resp ons e in the spectator, because visual representations of suffering have become commonp lac e a nd a r e inherently linked with sensationalism.In Sontag's account, such images c re ate a "c hro nic voyeuristic relation" to the world. 6In a similar vein, Martha Rosler's 1981 essay "In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photography)" offers a substantial critique ag ainst the notion that documentary photography can give a truthful account of "reality."Claiming tha t documentary photography only offers empty remarks about the "conditions of man," R o s le r states that the common idea "that documentary precedes, supplants, transcends , o r c ures full, substantial social activism is an indicator that we do not yet have a real documentar y."7In other words, documentary photography may pacify the viewer by reaffirming the distance between the photographic subject and the spectator, rather than function as a call for action.
The remarks made by Sontag and Rosler raise important points about the photographic subject and the spectator, contemporary media, and the aesthetic iz atio n o f s uf fe ring .I n addition, it indirectly addresses the issue of agency.According to Sontag, the act of taking a picture is somewhat predatory because it violates people by turning them "into objects tha t can be symbolically possessed."8From Sontag's point of view, the photographer is in complete control, whereas the people in the images are objectified and robbed of agency, a s both Sontag and Rosler argue is the case in Diane Arbus's photographs of social "outsiders."9Photographing wounded, differently-abled, and non-normative bodies hig hlig hts the no nconformity of these bodies, which emphasizes the photographer's power but also vic timiz es the photographic subject.As I understand Sontag and Rosler, to be victimized is the same as being deprived of personal agency.This is perhaps articulated most clearly in Rosler's essay, which states that traditional documentary photography "carries (old) inf o rm atio n a bo ut a group of powerless people to another group addressed as socially powerful."10offers a different approac h to "intolerable images" and their dis tribution in relation to the ques tion of ethic al response.Ranc ière c onvincingly argues that our s ystems of information do not operate through an overabundance of horrific images, but by "s elec ting the s peaking and reas oning beings who are c apable of 'dec iphering' the flow of information about anonymous multitudes .T he politics of its images c onsists in teac hing us that not jus t anyone is c apable of s eeing and s peaking.T his is the lesson very prosaically c onfirmed by thos e who c laim to c riticize the televisual flood of images ."Ranc ière, "T he I ntolerable I mage" in The Emancipated Spectator, trans .G regory E lliott (L ondon; Brooklyn, N Y : V erso, 2 009), 9 6 .While Ranc ière's obs ervations are an important c ontribution to the dis cussion of photographic images and their dis tribution, my paper will not follow his line of in quiry.In Regarding the Pain of Others (2003), Sontag engages with her former work on photography and further grapples with the medium's ethical implications.C o mme nting o n some of the most harrowing images from the past two centuries, Sontag struggles with the question of photography's value.Although skeptical of the medium's ability to convey reality, Sontag implores the atrocious images to haunt us, as photography depicting suffering potentially is "an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalizations for mass suffering offered by established powers." 11However, S o ntag d o es not explicitly address the photographic subject's agency, but rather focuses on th e spectator's reaction to the images of wounded bodies.It therefore seems as if Sontag is still hesitant to approach the body in pain as a body with agency.In the follo wing , I will s ho w how Mikhailov and Pavlensky challenge such a position as the wounded body in the ir wo rk s stands forth as a body that may bear the actions of others, but also has the capacity to act.

Boris Mikhailov's Case History: Documenting History and Delegating Performance
As a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the city of Kharkov, Ukraine, went through dramatic changes over the course of the 1990s. 12Gradually, the c ity wa s c o ver ed with foreign advertisements-bright and colorful manifestations of the ne wly a cc umulate d wealth of a fortunate few and in stark contrast to ov erwhelming signs of poverty.W atc hing his home city change before his eyes, Boris Mikhailov became astutely aware of a new presence in the modern cityscape: a great number of homeless people.W he rea s K ha rk ov had undergone the transition from communism to a market economy, neo-lib era l r ef o rm s, hyperinflation, and the downsizing of social welfare systems, these were the people who ha d lost their homes and received no state support.Wanting to document the historical moment, Mikhailov embarked upon a project that took two years to finish and resulted in Case History (completed in 1999), a series of more than four hundred life -sized color photographs portraying the lives of homeless people in Kharkov. 13 active photographer since the 1960s, Mikhailov has received international acclaim for his numerous photography series. 14While his early work to some extent shared the conceptual framework of Moscow C onceptualism (associated with figures such as Ilya 11 Sus an Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (N ew Y ork: P icador, 2 0 03), 1 1 7.
12 U kraine gained its independence from the Soviet U nion in 1 9 91.T he years to c ome would be marked by dramatic ec onomic decline.A ccording to the World Bank, in 1 9 9 1 the G D P per c apita was $ 1,4 90; by 2000 it had fallen to $ 6 36. 13T he his torical s pecificity of Cas e His tory is important.I n the Soviet U nion, it was s trictly forbidden to take photos in s pecific public s paces, to develop photos that might ques tion or c riticize Soviet ideology and everyday life, and to photograph naked bodies.E xplaining his reason for c reating Cas e His tory, M ikhailov s tated, " [h]aving thes e laws and their c onsequences in my memory, I was awar e that I was not allowed to let it happen onc e again that s ome periods of life would be eras ed" in Boris M ikhailov, Cas e His tory (Berlin: Sc alo, 1 9 99), 7 .
14 M ikhailov was born in Kharkov, U kraine (U SSR) in 1 9 38, and began his c areer as an amateur photographer in the 1 9 6 0s.By the late 1 960s, M ikhailov had finis hed what is ac knowledged as his firs t larger photography s eries, Superimpos itions, and he s oon bec ame a figure within the unoffic ial art s c ene in the Soviet U nion.I n 1 976, he quit his job and devoted hims elf entirely to his photographic work.By the early 2 0 00s, M ikhailov had made twenty -six photography s eries.I n 2 0 00, he was awarded the H as selblad Foundation I nternational A ward, c onsidered by many to be the mos t pres tigious rec ognition in c ontemporary photography.For a c ohes ive account of M ikhailov's s tylistic and formal development as a photographer, s ee U rs Stahel, "P rivate Pleasures, Burdens ome Boredom, P ublic D ecay-an I ntroduction" in Boris Mikhailov: A retros pective/Eine Retros pektive, ed.U rs Stahel (Zurich: Sc alo, 2 0 03), 1 2 -17.Kabakov, Erik Bulatov, Viktor Pivovarov, and Andrei Monastarsky ), his p o s t-So viet s e r ies speak directly to the state of confusion, disillusionment, and the collapse of order that followed as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 15Case His to ry m a rk s a p iv o tal point in Mikhailov's photographic documentation o f post-Soviet reality.Several of the photographs show explicit nakedness or human suffering, and the series includes photographs of animals, children, Mikhailov himself and his family members, objects or rooms, and cityscapes.The images therefore depict not only the situation of the ho me le ss , but also reflect general life in Kharkov.Although the focus of Case History is above all on Kharkov's inhabitants, the series clearly documents a city in decay.In some of the photographs, Mikhailov carefully aligns the two, as exemplified by the image of a man lying in a hole in an asphalt road (fig.1).From its jagged, uneven shape, it is evident that the hole is not carefully des igne d, b ut r a ther the result of natural erosion or caused by rough weather conditions.C overed by plants and trash, the hole has clearly remained unattended for quite some time.The m an is f o r mally dressed, but his suit is stained and his shoes are worn.His hands are s wo llen a nd a la r g e wound is visible on his left wrist.His face is covered in dust and grease.These visual markers suggest that the man is one of the homeless people in K ha r kov .Mik ha ilov he r e captures both human and social decline and seems to suggest an almost symbiotic relationship between the homeless man and his environment-one may even speculate whether the man's positioning within the hole is accidental, or whether Mikhailov ins truc ted the man how to lie.For example, his back and shoe bottom run parallel to the right e d ge o f the asphalt, while small indents are visible in the asphalt above his head and above the elbow of the arm on which the man rests his head.He stretches his left arm out in f r o nt o f his belly, perhaps to provide the spectator the best view of his swollen and wounde d ha nd , an awkward pose that mirrors the irregular shape of the hole.In the upper left corner of the photograph, a large crack appears in the asphalt, and the direction of the c r ack c o ntinues visually through the position of the man's right forearm and the angle of his e x t end ed le g.Lastly, the man's jacket chromatically mirrors the asphalt, and his unwa shed f a c e ha s the color of the dirt and gravel in the hole.C onsidering these compositional feature s, it is a s if Mikhailov suggests that man and environment are one, as if the ho le ha s p e rf e ctly ta ke n shape around the man's body.While Case History at first glance resembles social documentary photography in the vein of Jacob Riis, Walker Evans, R o ma n V is hnia c, Ma r y Ellen Mark, and David Goldblatt (to name but a few), it is Mikhailov's careful co mp os itio na l choices such as these that add a clear artistic component to the series, thus situating C as e History as both documentary and fine-art photography. 16cumenting a specific moment in Ukrainian history, Mikhailov pays special attention to homeless subjects who are covered in wounds and characterized by deformities, a s if the ir bodies bear physical evidence of a society in decline.Considering the focus on bodies in pain alongside the title of the series, the spectator is force d to look at the b o d ies p o r tr aye d a s though extracted from a medical journal of pathology.This aspect of the work even le d o ne critic to accuse Mikhailov of contributing to the creation of a "pornography of pain." 17 Although such characteristics point out the complicated issue of voyeurism and the photographer's potential exploitation of his/her subjects, I challenge the notion that Mikhailov's photographs are set on victimizing or humiliating the subjects whos e wo un de d bodies are depicted.
In one photograph, Mikhailov portrays a naked woman with a large abdominal hernia-a physical ailment that causes pain and discomfort that may be increased by basic, e ve ryd ay movements (fig.2).The woman's naked body is centered in the photograph, and the woman 16 O n the c onnec tion between M ikhailov and doc umentary photography, s ee Walead Beshty, "T oward an E mphatic Resistance: Boris M ikhailov's E mbodied D ocuments," Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, and Enquiry, no. 1 2 (A utumn/Winter 2 005), 8 0 -88.
T he art c ritic and author Boris G roys has argued against s uch c ritic ism, noting that on c loser inspection, Cas e His tory "is in fac t c onc erned with the mis e-en-s cène of the body-in this c ase not as an ideologically s taged "Soviet" body, but as an erotic body expressing desire" in G roys , His tory Becomes Form: Mos cow Conceptualis m, 1 4 0 .stands tall, in profile, with a serious look upon her face.Her body, c o ve re d in s unlig ht, is aged and worn, and a large scar is visible on her shoulder.The woman's pose seems contrived and staged, suggesting that she is aware of being photographed.The compositio n offers the spectator the best possible view of her deformity -exp os ed b y the s un a nd s et against a dark background.It is therefore tempting to argue that Mik hailo v c a ptur ed the woman in such a position so that the observer may get the best possible view of her deformity, satisfying our morbid fascination.However, a closer look at other formal, compositional decisions suggests that this is not simply an image of a hernia or a pathologized body.The woman's body is paralleled by the building structure behind he r, a s the brick walls are covered with wounds and architectural deformities, thereby e vo king the marks that time leaves on everything and everyone.In some places paint is chipping off, and the wall to the right reveals a failed attempt to cover the brick in a differe nt m a te ria l.T he beige color of the left wall is similar to the woman's general skin complexion, while the o ld paint stains mirror the darker shade of her nipples, her scars, and the mole above he r r ig ht knee.The patterns in the mortar resemble the shapes made by the prominent v e ins in he r hand, the creases in her elbow, and the wrinkles on her neck.Suddenly, the protruding hernia seems of less significance.Instead, in its detail and overall careful comp os itio n, the photograph becomes a celebration of lived life, imperfection, and naked vulnerability.What I am proposing by analyzing this specific photograph in form, content, and context, is that Mikhailov is not interested in exposing the wounds or deformitie s o f o ther s simply to shock or provoke the spectator.In Case History, the body in pain needs to be considered from a more generous approach that pushes us to look beyond the explicit exhibition of cuts and bruises, and that challenges us to view these bodies as worthy of aesthetic contemplation.More important, Mikhailov's compositional strategies compel viewers to look more closely and consider the stories of the individuals photographed in relationship to their surrounding environment.The homeless in Case History therefore should not be viewed simply as objects of a social documentary, but as co-creators in an a e sthe tic production.This latter point is made even clearer when examining the connectio n b etwe en the documentary and performance in Case History.
C ommenting on the creative process of making Case History, Mikhailov states tha t he approached the homeless from a journalistic point of view, but that he wanted to avoid doing "pure journalism"-defined by the artist as "taking snapshots of events without interfering." 18He accomplished this by asking the homeless subjects to reenact situations or scenes he had witnessed, or to strike a pose of their own design.I claim that this should be interpr ete d a s an act of embodied agency since Mikhailov's photographs do not solely document a s p e cif i c historical moment; they also record the agency of Kharkov's homeless thro ugh the ir o f ten self-fashioned portraits and reenactments.While I certainly do not p r o po se v iewing C a se History as performance art, the staged elements of the works, and the complicit contribution of the homeless subjects who were asked to "perform themselves" should not be understated.Indeed, a continuum that may be traced in Mikhailov's photogra phs f r om the last three decades is his exploration of the fine line between theatrical performance (of everyday life) and documentary-an important aspect of his art that has been pointed out by several critics and is especially apparent in Case History. 19e implications of the homeless subjects' self-performance can be interpreted thr o ug h C laire Bishop's concept of "delegated performance," defined as "the act of hiring nonprofessionals or specialists in other fields to undertake the job of being present and performing at a particular time and a particular place on behalf of the artist, and following his or her instructions." 20The people who are hired, according to Bishop, are asked to p e rf o rm their socioeconomic category, whether this is a matter of age, gender, r a ce , d is ab ility , o r profession.Mikhailov's accounts of the making of Case History focus on this element of collaboration between himself and the homeless, but it should be noted that he paid the 18 Boris M ikhailov and J an Kaila, "A D iscussion between Boris Mikhailov and J an Kaila" in Boris Mikhailov: The Has s elblad Award 2000, ed.G unilla Knape (G oteborg: H asselblad C enter, 2 000), 7 8 -84.homeless for their participation. 21To some degree, this establishes an unequal power relation between Mikhailov and the homeless, making it easy to criticize the photographer for exploiting a vulnerable social group.But although such a transaction may affirm the a rtis t's hierarchical status, it is also a matter of probing singular authorship, delegating power , a nd entrusting the performers with agency. 22There is a dialogical relatio n b etwe en a rtis t a nd performer; as Bishop emphasizes, "delegation is not just a one -way, downward g e stur e." 23 To interpret the wounded bodies in Case History as exploited subjects who are taken advantage of deprives the homeless individuals of the agency that is manifest in their participation.To be clear, I am not suggesting that the homeless in Case History are fully in 21 I n the introduc tory notes to Cas e His tory, M ikhailov discusses the fac t that he paid the homeles s to partic ipate in the making of the s eries: "M anipulating with money is s omehow a new way of legal relations in all areas of the former U SSR.A nd by this book I wanted to trans mit the feeling that in that plac e and now people c an be openly manipulated.I n order to give this flavour of time I wanted to c opy or perform the s ame relations which exist in s ociety between a model and mys elf."I n Boris M ikhailov, Cas e His tory (Berlin: Sc alo, 1 999), 9 .T he financ ial trans action between M ikhailov and his photographic s ubjects thus draws awarenes s to the c apitalist s ystem at large, and als o s peaks to the s ituation of pos t -Soviet U kraine in the 1 9 9 0s, during whic h time c ertain groups gained pros perity, while others fac ed the deepest poverty.
charge of the work's production and its distribution, but rather that a g ency s hould no t b e reduced to thinking of the photographic subjects as exploited, and the a r tis t a s e x p lo iter .Instead, the individuals in the series must be acknowledged for their participation in the making of the photographs.An old man who opens his mouth to reveal his m iss ing te e th, pulling back his lip so we can see them better, surely displays an image of s o m eone 's p a in and misfortune, but it is also the image of an individual who allowed for such a p ho to gr ap h to be taken (fig.3).The old man looks straight into the camera as if to tell us that he is no t ashamed of his pain, suggesting that being photographed in this setting is a matter of consensus, agreement, and mutual recognition between the photographer and the s ub j ect, although this naturally does not do anything to ease his per sonal tragedy.The confrontational gaze and the matter-of-factness with which the homeless man presents himself affirm his agency.Ignoring such an expression of personal agency, I argue, may lead to the further victimization of the photographic subject.
My intention so far has been to show how Mikhailov combines documentary photography, fine art, and performance in order to record a specific moment in po s t -So viet history.In addition, Mikhailov's Case History presents bodies in pain that are not vic tim iz ed or robbed of agency, but are rather active participants in the creative process of making the series.Nevertheless, in Case History, bodily pain as such is portrayed by Mikhailov as a consequence of social issues beyond the subject's control.What, then, of pain tha t is s e lfinflicted and consciously incorporated into artistic action?

Petr Pavlensky: The Political Potential of Pain
In November of 2013, news agencies across the world circulated an im ag e o f a y o ung man sitting naked on Red Square in front of the imposing Kremlin in Moscow with his scrotum nailed to the cobblestones (fig.4).The young man was Petr Pavlensky, a professionally trained artist who sees his practice as uniting art and political action, and who in the last five years has emerged as a powerful voice of dissent in Russia. 24B es ide s b e ing mentioned in news reportage around the world, the persistent coverage of Pavlensky in magazines such as Artforum, the Calvert Journal, and 1843 (the Economist's cultural magazine) has made Pavlensky a symbol of Russian art and activism in the eyes of a Western audience.The wide online distribution of Pavlensky's actions and the resulting commentaries triggered by them further speak to the charged relationship between his performances and their documentation, and also raise the question o f whethe r the p ub lic aftermath of his actions should, in fact, be interpreted as being part of his overall performance.In the following descriptions, I refer to live performances -events that happened at a certain time and place in front of an audience-but my descriptions are necessarily based on photographs taken during the events.On the one hand, this represents 24 P etr P avlensky is a former s tudent of both Saint P etersburg Art and I ndustry Academy and Saint P etersburg P RO ARTE Foundation for C ulture and A rts (whic h he quit for politic al reasons).T ogether with O ks ana Shalygina, he is the founder of the journal Political Propaganda, whic h publis hes material in different media on art and politics.While P avlensky's art does not always revolve around s elf -mutilation and a public dis play of the artis t's own (naked) body, the works that will be explored here all foc us on the wounded body in enc ounter with public s paces and political power.I t s hould als o be noted that, when referring to his performanc es, P avlensky us es the Russian word aкция (akts iya).T his term s hould be unders tood as an ac t that is the c onsequence of actionis m.By employing this word to des c ribe his art, P avlensky positions himself within the larger artis tic tradition and dis course of V iennese A ctionism of the 1 9 6 0s and 1 970s, but more important, it c onnec ts him to M os cow A ctionism of the 1 9 90s, famous ly pers onified by figures s uch as A natoly O smolovsky, A leksandr Brener, and O leg Kulik.For the s ake of s implicity, I will us e the E nglish word action when des c ribing Pavlensky's performances.a methodological challenge, and on the other, it offers a chance to a p p ro ac h P a vle ns ky's work as twofold: as both performance and as photographic perf or ma nc e d o c umenta tion, circulated not as art but as news.To each of the performances that will be discus se d in m y paper, Pavlensky invited photographers to document his actions, although no contract existed between the artist and the photographers regarding the future media distribution o f the images.25Thus, Pavlensky did not view the photographs as being p ar t o f the a r twor k.Rather, he used photography to validate and document his performances.Paul Auslander has argued that whenever a performance is documented, the performance may be approached as raw material for documentation, while the d o c ument itself emerges as the final product that is widely circulated and known to a larger audience. 26n a similar vein, Amelia Jones states that performance art is dependent on doc um entatio n "to attain symbolic status within the realm of culture." 27In Pavlensky's case, this is especially true.Not only does the distributed documentation reach an additional audience both nationally and internationally, but it also helps constitute his actions as art: for, as Auslander claims, "the art of documenting an event as performance is what constitutes it as such." 28I n the Russian political context in which Pavlensky operates, such an attrib ution is o f c r uc ial importance.His actions have been interpreted by the authorities as signs of m e ntal illne ss and as acts of vandalism, and as a result Pavlensky has been detained, fined, and imprisoned.Furthermore, the iconic photographs of his actions may becom e part of a collective memory of a body that resisted political oppression.The relationship between Pavlensky's actions and their documentation is therefore "viral" in the sense that C hristopher Bedford deploys the term, precisely because the afterlife of his performances "e xte nds the primary act of the performance into the indefinite future of reproduction." 29though the action on Red Square was not the first time Pavlensky used his o wn b o dy to express his opposition to the political situation in Russia , Fixation (Фик са ция) r e ceiv ed massive media attention due to its explicit content and loaded symbolism: the d a te o f the action, November 10, coincided with the national Police Day, and Red Square bea rs s p ec ial significance in the political history of the Russian state. 30Regarding what he wanted to achieve with the performance, Pavlensky stated: The performance can be seen as a metaphor of the apathy, the political indifference, and the fatalism of Russian society.It is not the official lawle ssness that de prives society of the possibility to act, but the fixation on its defeats and 26 P aul A uslander, "T he P erformativity of P erformance D ocumentation" in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 2 8 , no. 3 (2 0 0 6): 3 . 27A melia J ones, "'P resence' in A bs entia: E xperiencing Performance as D ocumentation" in Art Journal 5 6 , no. 4 (1 9 9 7): 1 3 . 28A us lander, "P erformativity of P erformance," 5 .
29 C hris topher Bedford, "T he Viral O ntology of P erformance" in Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in His tory, eds .A melia J ones and A drian H eathfield (C hicago: I ntellect Books, 2 012), 7 7 . 30P olic e D ay-or P olice and I nternal A ffairs Servicemen's D ay-is a profes sional holiday in Rus sia.I t has been c elebrated s ince 1 962 and is formerly known as M ilitsiya D ay. O n this day, the polic e and everyone working in the M inistry of I nternal A ffairs are honored by their s uperiors and o ther government officials.Red Square dates from the late 1 5 th c entury.For c enturies, it func tioned as one of the mos t c entral market plac es in M oscow, and was a gathering plac e for public c elebrations and c astigations.Red Square is als o the loc ation for Rus sia's famous military parades.I t s hould be noted that P avlensky's action evokes another his torical c omponent: in Rus s ian prisons, there is a tradition of inmates nailing their s crotums to s tools and benches to protest the pris on authorities.See inter view with M arat G uelman in E kow E s hun, et.Pavlensky's statement touches upon a number of characteristic ele me nts o f his wo r k: its almost obvious use of metaphors and symbolism; its clear political component; and its desire to comment on the larger social body through the use of the artist's own body.The lik ening of the Russian people to "an army of apathetic statues" is telling of how Pavlensky views his contemporaries: as passive and submissive; easily shaped by the authorities; and as unwilling or incapable of changing their fates. 32Nevertheless, the us e o f the wo rd "a rm y" suggests that Pavlensky acknowledges the potential power and inherent agency of R us sia 's citizens, and although Pavlensky is physically affixed to the square in his perfo rm anc e, the fixation alluded to in the title is also psychological in nature.I therefore arg ue that Pavlensky's actions do not only reflect the artist's interpretation of his contemporaneity , b ut they also call on others to act, even if indirectly.The way in which Pavlensky speaks to today's Russia, while simultaneously anchoring his actions in Russ ian his to ry thr oug h his careful choice of performance locations and timing, makes his actions function as a reminder: history may be irreversible, but it should not dictate our present.This, of c our se , does not mean that Pavlensky's actions do not nee d to be contextualized within the ir o wn socio-historical moment to be fully understood.
Following the parliamentary election of December 2011, in which Vladimir Putin's p a rty United Russia won the majority of the seats in the Duma, protests broke out in several cities around the country.For months to come, people regularly gathered in the streets to pro tes t what they considered illicit elections and political and economic corruption-signs o f R us sia moving in a non-democratic direction.On February 21, 2012, five members of the punk rock collective Pussy Riot staged a performance of their song "Punk Prayer-Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. 33The video of the performance wa s uploaded to the Internet and soon went viral, and with their bright costumes and radical message, Pussy Riot became a world symbol of the anti-Putin opposition in Russia.However, 31 "А кц ию можно рас с матривать как метафору апатии, политической индифферентности и ф атализма с овременного рос сийского общ ества.Н е чиновничий бес предел лиш ает общ ество возможнос ти дейс твовать, а ф икс ация на с воих поражениях и потерях вс е крепче прибивает нас к кремлевской брус чатке, с оздавая из людей армию апатичных ис туканов, терпеливо ждущ их с воей учас ти."A uthor's translation.See, "Художник П етр П авленский прибил мош онку гвоздем к брус чатке на Крас ной площ ади," N ovember 1 0, 2 0 13, http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/activism/m.2 21013.html. 32A rt c ritic M arat G uelman for ins tance interpreted Fixation as a means of s howing s oc iety and the oppos ition "that we have los t, that the battle is over: they've impris oned us all and nailed us to the ground."G uelman even added that P avlensky's action was "the artis tic equivalent of s etti ng yourself on fire," while the Rus s ian artist O leg Kulik viewed P avlensky as a martyr.See E s hun, et al.

P us s y Riot's c hoice of loc ation is by no means c oincidental. T he original C athedral of C hrist the Savior
was built in the 1 9 th c entury, but, on the order of J os eph Stalin, it was demolis hed in 1 9 31.I n 1 9 58, a large outdoor s wimming pool was built on the foundation of what was initially s upposed to bec ome the P alace of the Soviets.T he pool operated until 1 994, and in the following year, the buildin g of the new c athedral began.T he s econd Cathedral of C hrist the Savior was c onsecrated in A ugust 2 000.E liot Borens tein has argued that the C athedral of C hrist the Savior mus t be unders tood as "the material foundation of the c ultural logic of P us sy Riot" bec ause it s peaks to the c oncept of his torical ins tability.
P us sy Riot's performance mus t therefore be unders tood as a s trong c ritique against the almos t s ymbiotic relationship between the Rus sian s tate and the Rus sian O rthodox C hurch -a c onnection that was made explic itly evident in the months prec eding the Rus sian presidential election of 2 0 1 2 when P atriarch Kirill in the severe legal persecutions facing the women also made clear how ha r shly the R us sia n state would punish political dissidents. 34vlensky's action Seam (Шов) of July 2012, was in indirect dialogue with P us s y R io t and the authority's treatment of the group's members.Standing in front of the famous Kazan C athedral in St. Petersburg, dressed in black and with a stoic expression, Pavlens ky he ld a large placard which read: "The performance of Pussy Riot was a replica tion o f the f a mo us action of Jesus Christ (Matthew 21:12-13)" 35 -referring to Jesus Christ's expulsion of mone y changers and merchants from the Temple. 36In contrast, the artist's silence was made explicit and irreversible since his mouth was sewed shut with visible red thread. 37Pavlensky's action thus expressed his support for the members of Pussy Riot, whos e tr ia l wa s to ta k e place in Moscow the same month. 38year later, in May 2013, Pavlensky would once more use his body to address the political situation in Russia.In the action Carcass (Туша), Pavlensky lay in front of the m a in entrance of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly bare naked and wrapped insid e a la r g e cocoon of barbed wire (fig.5).As the barbed wire would cut deeper into the artist's skin with every move he made, Pavlensky was forced to lie completely still in the cold, inc a p ac it a te d and dependent on law enforcement to be released.Carcass was performed as a protest against a number of laws that were discussed (and passed) in the Russian Duma in the fall of 2012 and spring of 2013, several of which Pavlensky and others interprete d a s r e s tric ting individual freedom. 39Pavlensky wished to embody this restrictio n, a nd to s y mb oliz e "the existence of a person living within a repressive yet law-given system in whic h e v er y m o ve 34 For more on the aftermath of P us s y Riot's performance, s ee M asha G essen, Words Will Break Cement: The Pas s ion of Pus s y Riot (N ew Y ork: P enguin, 2 0 14).
35 "А кц ия P ussy Riot была переигрыванием знаменитой акции И исуса Христа (М ф. 2 1 :12 -13)."A uthor's translation. 36T he c itation from M atthew 2 1 :12-3 reads: "And J esus went into the temple of G od, and c as t out all them that s old and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneyc hangers, and the s eats of them that s old doves , A nd said unto them, I t is written, M y hous e s hall be c alled the hous e of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."P avlensky underlines the s ymbolical gesture of P ussy Riot's performanc e, as the offic ials of the Rus s ian O rthodox Church are likened to the moneyc hangers in the T emple bec ause of their c ommercial ac tivities.For more on the Rus s ian O rthodox C hurch and its ec onomic relations, s ee N ikolai M itrokhin's Русская православная церковь: современное состояние и актуальные проблемы (M os cow: N ovoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2 0 04). 37For images and a s urvey of his ac tions, s ee Shaun Walker, "P etr P avlensky: Why I N ailed my Sc rotum to Red Square," The Guardian, February 5 , 2 0 14, https ://www.theguardian.com/. 38A lthough c learly s peaking to his pres ent, P avlensky's c hoice of ac tion als o situated him within a larger c orpus of both performanc e artists and ac tivists who have s ewed their mouths s hut to s ignal political oppres s ion and the s ilencing of c ertain s ocial groups.D avid Wojnarowicz, Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose, and Ron A they are jus t a handful of the artis ts who have had their lips s ewn s hut during or as performanc es for divers e reasons, but the ges ture further res onates with thos e of as ylum s eekers in A us tralia and G reat Britain as a way of s ymbolizing unjus t governmental treatment .See Amelia J ones, "P erforming the Wounded Body: P ain, A ffect, and the Radic al Relationality of M eaning," Parallax 1 5 no. 4 (2 0 0 9): 4 6 -47. 39O ne s uc h example is the Rus sian Federation's law "for the P urpos e of P rotecting Children from I nformation A dvocating for a D enial of T raditional Family Values," whic h bec ame known in Wes tern media as the "gay propaganda law."A nother, the law "O n A mendments to L egislative Acts of the Rus s ian Federation regarding the Regulation of the A c tivities of N on -profit O rganisations P erforming the Functions of a Foreign A gent," s tated that Russian N GOs rec eiving donations from abroad mus t offic ially declare thems elves as foreign agents, and that all "political activity" within a given organization mus t be regis tered with the authorities before being c arried out.triggers a strong reaction by the law, and forces its way into the body of the ind iv idual." 40he title of Carcass further suggests that Pavlensky's body should be seen a s im mo biliz ed and deprived of agency.The performance therefore exhibited the artist's b o dy a s willing ly victimized as Pavlensky indirectly delegated some of his initial artistic agency to the p e o p le who witnessed his action, and to the ones who cut him out of the barbed wire-a po int tha t will be explored more closely below.As a consequence of his actions, Pavlensky's mental state has been questioned, and the artist has been evaluated by state-appointed doctors and psychiatrists.One might s a y tha t the authorities had no choice-exposing or voluntarily seeking out pain goes a g ainst s o c ial norms, and is usually synonymous with destructive behavior.Pavlensky is well aware of this, which can partially explain the location of his (to the date of this publication) last performance involving his wounded body.The action Segregation (Oтделе ние ) to o k p lac e outside the Serbsky Center, a famous psychiatric hospital in Moscow. 41On October 19, 2014, Pavlensky sat naked on the wall outside of the Serbsky Center, and with his only acces so ry, 40 "с ущ ес твование человека в репрессивной законодательной с истеме, где любое движение вызывает жес токую реакцию закона, впивающ егося в тело индивида ."A uthor's translation.See "Художник П етр П авленский прибил мош онку гвоздем к брус чатке на Крас ной площ ади," N ovember 1 0, 2 013, http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/activism/m.2 21013.html . 41I n the Soviet U nion, punitive ps ychiatry was a c ommon way of s ilenci ng artistic or political dissensus, thus diagnos ing opposition as a mental illness.For more on the topic , s ee for ins tance Sarah M arks and M at Savelli, eds ., Ps ychiatry in Communis t Europe (L ondon: P algrave Macmillan, 2 0 15), and Rebecca Reic h, "I ns ide the P sychiatric Word: D iagnosis and Self-Definition in the L ate Soviet Period," Slavic Review 7 3 , no.3 (2 0 1 4): 5 63-84.
an enormous knife, cut off his right earlobe (fig.6).By consciously performing an action that he knew would likely label him as psychologically unstable, Pavlensky cha llenged the carefully crafted distinction between the sane and the insane, which separates the he althy from the sick.Moreover, by physically cutting off his earlobe (which seems to have disappeared when Pavlensky was escorted away from the Serbsky Center 42 ) from the rest o f his body, Pavlensky gestured towards the fragile line of demarcation between the p a rt a nd the whole; the individual and the state.He also evoked the trope of the misunderstood artist-genius-balancing between madness and prophetic clarity, and famously personified by van Gogh and his severed ear. 43It is thus the act of cutting as such that is important in Pavlensky's action, not the physical mutilation of his body.
43 Several c ommentators have connected Pavlensky to the figure of the Holy Fool (юродивый).T he H oly Fool has deep roots in Rus sian O rthodoxy where the term des ignates someone who feigns s tupidity or madnes s in order to unc over injus tice.T he figure also appears frequently in Rus sian literature.For more on P avlensky as an example of the H oly Fool, s ee for ins tance D asha Filippova, "T he Russian T errorist: P etr P avlensky," ArtSlant, J une 1 3 , 2 0 16, http://www.artslant.com/9/articles/show/46065#f4 .I t s hould be noted, however, that the artis t hims elf has rejec ted s uch a c omparison: s ee his interview in Новая газета in D ec ember 2 012, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/arts/71111.html.Simply focusing on Palvensky's own body leaves out an important component of his art: the relationship between the social body and the body of an individual, an essential aspect of his work because of its consciously and explicitly public nature.Discussing the perf o rm ance Carcass in which the artist becomes completely dependent on others to be freed, Pav lensk y actively engages with the question of why his performances are so centered on his own body: "Why I use the body?Because there is a social body -a body that I am also a part o f .By using my own body in this act, I am showing what is going on with the social b o d y." 44 I f we take him at his word, Pavlensky does not conceive of his actions as d is co nne cte d f r o m the lives of his Russian contemporaries, but rather seeks to reflect wha t he c ons ide rs the state of the social body.Pavlensky's view on the artist's body here cle arly resonates with the projects of other body artists who see the artistic subject as a subject that continuously reaches beyond itself in order to show that identity is always relational, thereby entering the aesthetic realm as a social and political entity. 45In addition, the performed link between the individual and the social body in Pavlensky's actions makes it especially valid to ana lyz e his approach to pain and to ask whose pain this really is.If Pavlensky's body is a meta p ho r f o r the larger social body, one may assume that he considers the social body in p a in, p er hap s even to be pitied or healed.And yet, despite Pavlensky's powerful use of m eta pho rs , s uch metaphors do not obliterate the fact that, during his actions, the body in pain is ind ee d his .This raises an important issue regarding his actions: are we (as spectators and as representatives of the social body) somehow to blame for the individual's suffering? 46egardless of how one chooses to answer, the question itself shows the importance and potential of paying special attention to pain in Pavlensky's actions. 47I argue that, due to the artist's blurring of the border between the private and the social body, the experience of pain 44 Rus s iaForAll."Художник П ётр П авленский о с воей акции у ЗА КС СПБ," Y ouTube V ideo, 3 :4 1, M ay 8 , 2 0 1 3, https://www.youtube.com/watc h? v=YlWAW0brShE.A uthor's translation. 45A melia J ones, Body Art/Performing the Subject (M inneapolis/L ondon: U niversity of M innesota Press, 1 9 9 8), 1 3-14.See als o Zdenka Badovinac, ed., Body and the Eas t: From the 1960s to the Pres ent (C ambridge, M A: M IT P ress, 1 9 99); M ichael Feher, "O f Bodies and T echnologies" in Dis cus sions in Contemporary Culture, ed.H al Fos ter (Seattle: Bay P ress, 1 981); and N elly Richard, "M argins and I ns titutions: A rt in C hile s ince 1 974," in Art & Text 2 1 (1 9 86).For a s pec ific account of body art and its s oc ial s ignificance in relation to mas ochism in Wes tern performance art, s ee Kathy O 'Dell, Contract with the Skin: Mas ochis m, Performance Art, and the 1970's (M inneapolis: U niversity of M innesota P ress, 1 998). 46T his ques tion brings to mind other performanc es by artists s uch as Chris Burden, G ina P ane, and M arina A bramovic-artists who have all s elf-inflicted pain or had others inflic t pain upon their bodies.For an analys is of the "s ilent ac ceptance" of audienc e members to s uch ac ts, s ee O 'D ell, Contract with the Skin; and Frazer Ward, No I nnocent Bys tanders : Performance Art and Audience (H anover, D artmouth C ollege P res s, 2 012). 47T his is not to s ay, of c ours e, that P avlensky's actions are about pain as s uc h.When as ked about the role of pain in an interview, P avlensky s tated: "I t is not important.I n my ac tions I do not attac h any c onc eptual s ignificance to pain, and I do not emphas ize it.T he point is not to bring harm upon mys elf.I n general, I relate to pain as I relate to a phobia that mus t be overc ome -like any other fear.T he feeling of pain originates in the mind."A uthor's translati on.For the original quote in Rus s ian, s ee E vgeniy L evkovich, "П ётр П авленский: 'М оя ц ель -побудить людей к дейс твию'," Julia&Wins ton, N ovember 9 , 2 0 1 5, http://juliawinston.eu/pavlensky/.While P avlensky s eems to want to draw attention away from pain as a c omponent in his ac tions, I maintain that, to the average viewer, the as s umed presence of pain s till affec ts how one reac ts to and interprets his actions.

Pain Rendered Public
As should be clear from what has been explored so far, Mikhailov and Pavlensky are no t necessarily interested in simply focusing on the pain of one single individual; rather, they use the wounded body to allude to the larger social and political structures that may be c a us ing pain.For both artists, the distinction between the individual and the social bo dy is the re by challenged.Because of this, I would like to suggest that the presence of pain in the artworks discussed above indirectly disputes Elaine Scarry's study The Body in Pain, in which she argues that pain is inexpressible; that it resists language and is characterized by its inability to be shared.As Scarry puts it, "[t]o have pain is to have certainty; to hear about pain is to have doubt." 49Pain, for Scarry, cuts us off from our community and the ability to sufficiently express our emotions, and threatens to destroy our sense of self in the world: our ethics, the promises given by us to loved ones, and our personal integrity.Scarry approaches pain as an experience of pure negation; pain as something always appearing as being against the subject, even though the sensation of pain introduces a sense of radical subjectivity. 50Scarry's work has been influential across disciplines, but it has also been c r iticiz ed f o r giving an ahistorical account of pain, in which pain is presented as an ontological entity of its own-independent of cultural and political signifiers.Pain becomes a fact for Sca rr y, r a ther than something that needs to be interpreted within a more complex framework. 51His tor ian Joanna Bourke offers an alternative approach and seeks to contextualize pain a s a c o nc ep t and to challenge the notion of it being entirely private in nature.Bourke points out that p a in can be felt differently depending on how one experiences it, and sho uld b e a nalyz ed a s a type of event rendered public through language-not as something that happens to the body independently of its environment. 52As Bourke phrases it, "pain describes the way we experience something not what is experienced," and this "way" of experiencing pain is 48 J ennifer D oyle's scholarship has explored the importance of the viewer's affec tive response to artworks of c hallenging or diffic ult c ontent.Specifically writing on the "diffic ulty" involved in viewing the performanc es of the H I V -positive body artist Ron A they, D oyle notes: "T he work is hard bec ause it forc es us to keep c ompany with vulnerability, intimacy, and des ire. . . .T hes e are the things that, in fac t, make life hard.T hey are produc tive and important kinds of diffic ulty -not bec ause they expand our ideas of what c ons titutes Art but bec ause they s peak to quite fundamental as pects of being a s oc ial s ubject."D oyle's book is especially useful when interpreting the us e of the wounded body in Cas e His tory and in P avlensky's ac tions, as s he argues that the artist's triggering of an affec tive res ponse in the viewer es tablishes or further s trengthens the political and ideological implications of a given artwork, thus making us aware of our own res pons iveness and potential to ac t.See D oyle, Hold I t Agains t Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art (D urham, N C : D uke U niversity Press, 2 0 13), 2 0 .intrinsically public and political in nature. 53Bourke argues that by scrutinizing various p ainevents from a political perspective, "we are encouraged to explore the political apparatus . . . of pain-events: the discourses, institutions, laws, and medical, scientific, historical, and philosophical structures that underpin knowledges and be haviours associated with being-inpain." 54However, Bourke states, although our experience of pain might be connected to larger systems of power (ideology, the state, the police, etc.), this does not mean that individuals are unable to reconstruct pain-events that may oppose them.The pain-event as a mode of opposition is, I argue, exactly what is being exhibited in Case History and Pavlensky's actions.
Bourke is a helpful interlocutor for understanding the role of pain in the wo r k s o f b o th Mikhailov and Pavlensky because she focuses on the public component of pain.In my reading, the wounded body should here be seen as a body that is alr e ad y inc o rp or ate d in and marked by external forces that cause pain.Both artists therefore s p e ak to the b o d y's vulnerability-a topic that has gained a prominent position in Judith Butler's s c hola rs hip o f the last decade.Butler has convincingly argued that the body is susceptible to external forces, although this does not mean that it is simply a surface for others to inscribe . 55ulnerability does not speak to a subject's personal disposition b ut m us t b e r eg ar d ed a s inherently relational, as an inescapable result of our human condition of living amongst others. 56In recent work, Butler pays special attention to forms of politic a l r e s ista nce tha t mobilize the fragility of the human body, with the goal of asserting existence through deliberate bodily exposure. 57Arguably present in Case History as well, this form o f p o litic al resistance is especially apparent in Pavlensky's actions and adds another level of complex ity to his use of pain as a mode of artistic expression.Pavlensky's physical susceptibility is visually exhibited through his nakedness, the fact that he is performing alone, a nd thr o ug h his wounds.It is also reflected in the authorities' response to his actions, a s the ir p unitiv e repercussions confirm Pavlensky's status as an assailable individual, while s imulta ne ously affirming the control and power of the state.At the same time, however, one ma y a s k why the authorities consider it necessary to respond so strongly to a body in pain that at times is even completely immobilized.Does a wounded body really posit a threat to the social order ?Judging by the reactions of the Russian authorities, the answer is yes, and thereby r a is es a certain paradox: by reacting so aggressively to Pavlensky's actions, the authorities a c tually 53 A melia J ones has also challenged the notion that pain is exclusively private in nature.Foc using on the pres enc e of the phys ic al wound, J ones notes that our perc eption of s omeone's wound as actual makes us realize that our own body may be wounded as well.P otentially, the wound c an therefore c hallenge the s tric t boundaries between myself and my other, a notion that may have politic al implications.See Jones, "P erforming the Wounded Body: P ain, A ffect, and the Radic al Relationality of M eaning," Parallax 15, no. 4 (2 0 0 9): 5 5 . 54Bourke, The Story of Pain, 19.
55 J udith Butler, Frames of War: When I s Life Grievable?(L ondon/Brooklyn, N Y : V erso, 2 009), 3 3 .For other ac c ounts of vulnerability as a s hared human c ondition with a politic al potential, s ee D ebra Bergof fen, "February 2 2 , 2 0 01: T oward a P olitics of the V ulnerable Body" in Hypatia 1 8 , no.1 (Winter 2 0 0 3); "E xploiting the D ignity of the V ulnerable Body: Rape as a Weapon of War" in Philos ophical Papers 3 8 no.3 (2 0 0 9); and A driana Cavarero's Horroris m: Naming Contemporary Violence (N ew Y ork: C olumbia U niversity P ress, 2 0 08).T he c onnection between P avlensky's ac tion and vulnerability was also pointed out by C olleen M cQuillen in her c onference paper "T he V ulnerable Body as a P olitical I nstrument in Although one may claim that Pavlensky's actions are more explicitly political than Mikhailov's Case History, both artists refuse to define vulnerability as a la c k o f a g e nc y.B y contextualizing the body in pain socially and historically, they show how pain is relational-in essence, both private and social-which probes us to consider our own pain and our im p lic it relation to the pain of others.Furthermore, Mikhailov and Pavlensky offer valuable perspectives on what it means to inhabit and depict a wounded body in public.

Conclusion
Lying face down on a beach in Greece in January 2016, the f a mo us C hines e a r tis tactivist Ai Weiwei reenacted the photograph of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi.T he b la ck -andwhite photograph which captured the reenactment-taken by Rohit C hawla, a photog ra r for one of the biggest English-news magazines in Asia, India Today-was part of a larger and exclusive photo shoot that the magazine had with Ai.Claiming that the image was a tr ib ute to Kurdi, a press release from India Today commented on the reena ctm ent a nd its p ub lic response: "The result is a world exclusive photograph that has gone viral.The whole story is one image, which is what great art is." 58 The photographic documentation and distribution of Ai's reenactment bring us b a c k to the issues with which my paper began, concerning the fine line between journalism and sensationalism; news and entertainment; critical austerity and consumerist concerns in contemporary media, and how photographic representation of the wounde d b o d y f its into this landscape.In addition, because the photograph of Ai first appeared in a news magazine, the picture introduces another question-whether news images such as these are, or should be considered, art.In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag reflected on viewing wartime photographs exhibited in galleries, noting that such photographs and others automatically become art once they enter the gallery space.Sontag claimed that these images merely become stations along a stroll, which may cause us to lose our ability to contemplate what we see. 59As a result, we fail to view the peop le in the p ho to gr ap hs a s subjects.
Jacques Rancière has keenly noted that art images do not "supply weapons for ba ttles " but that they can inspire new configurations regarding what can be seen, said, and tho ug ht of, as long as "their meaning or effect is not anticipated." 60This, I argue, applies to the artworks by Boris Mikhailov and Petr Pavlensky that have been the focus o f m y p a p er. B y showing his Case History in some of the most prestigious galleries in the wo r ld , Mik hailov challenges the viewer to see the wounded bodies of Kharkov's homeless from a n a es thetic perspective.Moreover, the participants in Mikhailov's series, who str ike poses and willingly perform in front of the camera, are indirectly asking us to loo k a t the m a nd s e e the m a s subjects, as people in pain.In a rather different fashion, the wide media distributio n o f the 58 T he releas e then went on to mention that a full interview with A i and more pic tures from the s hoot would appear in the magazine's next is sue."A rtist Ai Weiwei pos es as Ayl an Kurdi for I ndia Today magazine," I ndia Today, February 1 , 2 0 1 6, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/artist-ai-weiwei-poses-asaylan-kurdi-for-india-today-magazine/1/584804.html. 59Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others , 1 2 1. 60 Ranc ière, "T he I ntolerable I mage," 1 0 3.
19  V iktor M isiano and A nna P ilkington give a valua ble account of this c onnection in M ikhailov's work, c oining it "the repres entation of the everyday and the performative ac ting -out of s ubjec ts." See M isiano and P ilkington, "T he E thics of V iew: N otes on Boris Mikhailov," Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, and Enquiry, no.7 2 (Fall/Winter 2 005): 7 2 -79.A nne von der H eiden also argues that the c onnection between the doc umentary and the performative is at the very c ore of Cas e His tory, and c alls it "the mos t s c andalous element of the work as a whole."See vo n der H eiden,"'C onsummatum E st' Cas e His tory by Boris M ikhailov" in Boris Mikhailov: A retros pective/Eine Retros pektive, ed.U rs Stahel (Zurich: Sc alo, 2 0 0 3), 1 70-172.C ontemporaneity: H istorical P resence in V isual C ulture http://c ontemporaneity.pitt.eduV ol 5 , N o 1 "A gency in M otion" (2 0 16) | I SSN 2 155-1162 (online) | D O I 1 0.5 195/c ontemp.2016.1 84

C
ontemporary Russian Art Activism," pres ented at the annual c onvention of the M odern L anguage A s sociation, A ustin, T exas, J anuary 7 -10, 2 0 16.C ontemporaneity: H istorical P resence in V isual C ulture http://c ontemporaneity.pitt.eduV ol 5 , N o 1 "A gency in M otion" (2 0 16) | I SSN 2 155-1162 (online) | D O I 1 0.5 195/c ontemp.2016.1 84 acknowledge his potent bodily rhetoric and clear political potential.It is here that the p o we r of the vulnerable body truly manifests itself and become s a body o f s o c ia l d is se ns us a nd agency.