Trajectory of Subject in the Space of Politics and Arts: The Artist, his Body and State Apparatus (Pavlensky’s Case)

This research investigates bodily art practices of Russian artist and actionist Peter Pavlensky, who uses his naked body in the urban space, creating corporal statements of political order. His body discourse involves the use of body parts, material objects, as well as urban structures – which fits the body – endowed with sacred and the political value: Red Square, a psychiatric hospital, etc. Using the approach of Badiou, I will show how body discourse on politics separates from the dominant political discourse in the mainstream media. Point of view of Kristeva on the phenomenon of subject let us to understand how naked body and artist's bodily work constitutes order of signifiers that media audience decodes as political statements. Corporal performance let to subject, deprived of the right to speak, to use his body as language to become the subject of political discourse in artistic sensual way. Act of creation of body text becomes the act of political resistance.