Moscow-based artist Ivan Volkov was sentenced to five months of hard labor for a five-meter installation shaped like a poop. The Sever.Realii publication writes about this, citing Volkov himself.
The artist and his lawyer Timofey Evseyev refused to tell reporters the details of the criminal case. Volkov placed the installation in the form of a five-meter poop on the Field of Mars in St. Petersburg on January 13, 2022.
After that, he and his friend Nikita Kolchin were detained at the Moscow railway station while they were waiting for a train to the capital. They were taken to police department No. 78, where they there was no food for a day and only water from the tap in the toilet was allowed to drink. Later they were released, giving the artist an obligation to appear.
After the arrest, it became known that a criminal case was opened against Volkov for desecration of burial sites (article 244 of the Criminal Code). “[The artist] deliberately, cynically, immorally <…> placed an art object made of snow in the form of giant feces in a yellow puddle, thus defiling the burial place of the dead with his deliberate actions, ”the decision to initiate proceedings was said.
Volkov himself told Paper that “did not put any definite meaning” into his work. On Facebook, he signed a frame with the work with the words “So beautiful that he crap like that”; his post is now unavailable.
This is a five-meter turd of snow in the center of St. Petersburg. And yes, it's an art object.
Explaining what's going on: https://t.co/oXh3Zox2Mu pic.twitter.com/OF1KbZs2XI
— Paper (@paperpaper_ru) January 14, 2022