1965 – 2023

August 6, 2023, the internationally known Belarusian performance artist and political provocateur Alieś Puškin would have turned 58 years old. Instead, it was announced in July that the artist had died under “unexplained circumstances” while in government custody. The cause, according to human rights activists, was a combination of poor prison conditions and delayed medical treatment. He was one of 1488 individuals—133 of them members of the cultural elite–currently in imprisoned by the Lukashenko regime for their political views, a number that continues to grow. In cooperation with Chrysalis Magazine, a Belarusian contemporary art publication, the New Art Examiner commemorates the life, creativity and early death of this important artist.

 

        Alieś Puškin was born on August 6, 1965, in Bobsk, a small village near Minsk, that had been home to his family for five generations, and where the. artist himself lived until his arrest in 2021.

        Pushkin enrolled in 1978 at the Republican Boarding School of Music and Fine Arts and later studied Monumental and Decorative Art at the Belarusian State Theatre and Art Institute (now Belarusian State Academy of Arts), but he was conscripted and sent to Afghanistan. Far from a model soldier, he spent a total of 28 days of his short military career in detention for dissident activities, including 10 days for keeping a diary in the (then illegal) Belarusian language.

          Upon his return home, Puškin continued his studies and held his first performance in 1988 on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the Belorussian Peoples’ Republic. He described the performance in his interview for Chrysalis Mag in 2020:

“During [my] fourth year at the university, I’d been organizing happenings on the avenue, adorned with posters and megaphones. That is when those performances, walking exhibitions, started… I created 12 posters, invited friends, and together we marched to
the House of Press, where we, a total of 36 people, were arrested. This resulted in a five-year probationary term, with two years of probation. But what posters they were!

        In this instance, as in other of Pushkin’s performances, the repressive official reaction of the authorities was understood to be part of the performance.

Gift to the President

        Puškin launched his most memorable—and provocative—performance on July 1999, on the fifth anniversary of Lukashenka’s rule. In the village of Bobr, the artist loaded an old cart with manure and placed several items on top: a poster that read “Aliaksandar Lukašenka’s with the people,” a sign saying “For five years of work,” pre-denomination Belarusian money, handcuffs, and the constitution with amendments expanding Lukašenka’s powers. With the cart of manure, he headed to the President’s residence in the center of Minsk on a minibus. When confronted by security, the performer then overturned the cart onto the pavement, placed a portrait of Lukašenka’s on top, and pierced it with a pitchfork. Soon, АМАР (Special Purpose Police Unit) officers arrived and arrested the artist.

Alieś Puškin , The artist’s photograph after a night of beatings at the notorious Akriescina Prisonin 2020.

 

The court sentenced Alieś Puškin to two years of conditional imprisonment.

        During his detention in solitary confinement, Puškin continued to draw and to smuggle the images out of prison. Some of his drawings were preserved thanks to human rights activists and can now be viewed on the website of the human rights center “Viasna.” There, one can find works not only by Alieś Puškin but also by other political prisoners from Belarus.

Marissa Jezak (b.1992, Harrison Township, MI) is an artist and writer based in Detroit. She earned a BFA in photography and critical theory from the College for Creative Studies in 2014. Marissa Jezak’s writing has been featured in publications such as Detroit Research and Runner, and she has exhibited artworks internationally. Her ongoing research focuses on illness, trauma, and gender politics