Earlier this year the radical art collective Voina won a contemporary art award sponsored by Russia's Ministry of Culture and the National Centre for Contemporary Art for a project that consisted of a 210-foot penis painted on a drawbridge in St Petersburg, pointed at the the headquarters of the state security service, the FSB. Last week it was announced they would help organise the Berlin Biennale as associate curators, a title given to them by artist/curator Artur Zmijewski.
Voina is back in the news following the arrest of group member Leonid Nikolaev at Pushkin Square in one of the mass protests against corruption in the Russian elections where he roused the crowd into a rendition of the socialist anthem Internationale. He was taken to jail, but after noticing the magnetic door to his cell area was unattended he slipped his finger in the door as the guard exited and staged a daring escape. You can read Nikolaev's journal entry on his arrest and escape at the Voina website.
Image: Leonid Nikolaev shortly before his arrest
