Today, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Nadya Tolokonnikova — conceptual artist, musician, activist, wanted criminal, and one of the founders of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest-art collective formed in Moscow in 2011.

Tolokonnikova spent nearly two years in a Russian prison after Pussy Riot’s 2012 performance Punk Prayer inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour — an action that transformed a brief act of punk dissent into one of the defining works of political performance art of the 21st century. Since then, her work has continued to confront the spaces where power presents itself as untouchable: the church, the state, the prison system, the museum, the media image.

That history matters in Venice. A national pavilion at the Biennale is never just architecture. It is a state speaking through culture.

Last week, in May 2026, as Russia returned to the Venice Biennale for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pussy Riot and FEMEN staged two connected protests. On May 6, they confronted the Russian Pavilion itself, using Ukrainian flags, pink balaclavas, smoke, flares, punk music, and slogans against Russia’s war. The action forced the pavilion to close temporarily.

On May 7, the confrontation moved from the pavilion to the institution that had allowed Russia back in. At Ca’ Giustinian, the headquarters of the Biennale Foundation, Tolokonnikova and the protesters challenged the Biennale’s leadership and its president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, over the claim that culture can remain neutral while being used by the Russian state. Reuters reported that the demonstration continued from the previous day’s action at the Russian Pavilion and was redirected by police to the Biennale Foundation’s headquarters, where flares in the colours of Ukraine were ignited.

This continuity — from the cathedral in Moscow to the pavilion in Venice, and from the pavilion to the Biennale’s own leadership — sits at the centre of our conversation.

Tolokonnikova’s recent work has only sharpened this confrontation between art, punishment, and political theatre. Her 2023 performance and exhibition Putin’s Ashes, later shown at institutions and galleries including Dallas Contemporary, turned the image of Putin into ritual material and helped place her back on Russia’s wanted list. In 2025, POLICE STATE premiered at MOCA in Los Angeles as a durational performance and installation built around the architecture of confinement, before travelling to MCA Chicago later that year.

Her accolades include Time Woman of the Year, the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought, the LennonOno Grant for Peace, the Woody Guthrie Prize, and an Honorary Doctorate from RISD. She also carries, as a kind of involuntary badge of honour, the Russian Federation’s 2025 designation of Pussy Riot as an extremist organisation — a reminder that, in authoritarian systems, art is not treated as metaphor when it threatens power. Reuters also reported that Pussy Riot was declared an extremist organisation and banned in Russia in 2025.

So this episode is about protest as art, culture as power, exile, propaganda, and the impossibility of neutrality when neutrality itself becomes a political position.

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In this episode, Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar speaks with Galerie Nordenhake about the role of the gallery today, the importance of sustained artist relationships, and how a gallery with Nordic roots continues to operate within an increasingly global contemporary art world.

Founded by Claes Nordenhake in Malmö in 1976 (meaning celebrating 50 yr in 2026), Galerie Nordenhake is one of Scandinavia’s most internationally respected contemporary art galleries. Today, the gallery operates across Stockholm, Berlin and Mexico City, connecting a Nordic point of origin with a broader European and Latin American presence.

Over nearly five decades, Nordenhake has built a reputation for a rigorous and intellectually grounded programme, representing both established and emerging artists across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, conceptual practice and performance. The gallery is particularly known for its long-term commitment to artists, its close dialogue with institutions, and its ability to support practices that often unfold slowly, critically and with lasting cultural depth.

Historically, the gallery has played an important role in introducing and supporting artists such as Anthony Gormley, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, John Coplans, Esko Männikkö and Mirosław Bałka, while continuing to work with a diverse international roster. Its programme reflects a clear belief in art as a space for visual precision, material intelligence and conceptual seriousness.

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In this episode of The Art Bystander, our host Roland-Philippe Kretzschmar is joined by Marc Spiegler, one of the key figures shaping the global art market over the past decade.

Having led Art Basel from 2007 to 2022, he helped transform the fair from a marketplace into a global cultural platform—redefining how art is experienced, communicated, and sold. Today, Spiegler operates across a portfolio of cultural, strategic, and advisory initiatives at the intersection of art, business, and technology. He is co-founder of Art Market Minds, including the course AI & The Art Market, which explores how AI is beginning to reshape structures, behaviours, and opportunities across the industry.

Alongside this, Spiegler is a Visiting Professor at Bocconi University, where he teaches cultural management and the impact of artificial intelligence on the art world, and serves as President of the Board of Directors of Superblue, as well as Chairman of the Advisory Board of the future UBS Digital Art Museum. Spiegler collaborates with the Luma Foundation, sits on the boards of the ArtTech Foundation and Art Explora Foundation, and advises companies including Prada Group, KEF, and Sanlorenzo on cultural strategy.

In this conversation, we trace that full arc—from journalism to Art Basel to AMM—and what it reveals about the structural shifts shaping the art world today.

Also mentioned in the episode New York Real Estate and the Ruin of American Art and Will AI Slop and Deep Fakes Kill Culture.

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