A Moscow court on Wednesday released radical performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky but gave him a hefty fine for torching the door of Russia’s security service headquarters, in a rare show of leniency by the authorities, Artdaily.com reports.
A judge ordered the artist to pay 500,000 rubles ($7,800, 6,800 euros) after finding him guilty, saying the punishment was reduced due to the seven months Pavlensky had already spent behind bars.
He was also ordered to pay 481,000 rubles to replace the burnt door of the Moscow headquarters of the FSB security services — the successor to the feared Soviet-era KGB.
Pavlensky had faced up to three years’ jail on charges of damaging a cultural site.
The artist, who previously gained notoriety for nailing his scrotum to Moscow’s Red Square, doused the door with gasoline and set it on fire in a performance last November that he called Threat.
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This article first appeared on Russian Art + Culture on June 9, 2016 and has been reposted with permission.
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