Art Under Censorship – Houston
April 17, 2025
Photo Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at University of Houston
Pussy Riot organized a public action at the Sam Houston statue in Houston, Texas, in collaboration with students from the University of Houston. The performance was an homage to Ideal Banner (1972) by Komar and Melamid, a Soviet conceptual artwork known for its strategic ambiguity. The banner displays no message and, in doing so, avoids direct censorship- while still functioning as a symbol of protest.
The action served as a practical exercise in public performance and organizing. Students were involved in planning, staging, and documentation. The focus was not solely on the message, but also on the structure of the intervention: occupying space, working collectively, and producing an image that carries political and historical weight.
This is one of several homages by Pussy Riot to artists who worked under censorship. Nadya Tolokonnikova previously met with Vitaly Komar in 2023 during his exhibition at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University to discuss protest art under Soviet rule.
In a 2017 op-ed, Ai Weiwei described the psychological impact of censorship:
“Censoring speech removes the freedom to choose what to take in and to express to others… Wherever fear dominates, true happiness vanishes and individual willpower runs dry.”
Tolokonnikova plays with art under censorship by looking to her mentors who have also used art as a lens to explore this topic. Jenny Holzer’s Redacted (Top Secret), Waterboard and Enhanced Tactics were also inspirations for this action.
She also cites Judy Chicago as a source for public interventions – taking up space – sometimes with banners, masks, and like Judy Chicago’s work, with smoke, as seen in the Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie in 2024 (1st below), Judy Chicago (2nd), and Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest 2011 (3rd)
The choice of location—the Sam Houston monument—was not made in support of the historical figure but rather to utilize a prominent public site. The statement references both local and state-level rhetoric around freedom and expression, including a quote from Sam Houston himself:
“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.”
This project is funded or commissioned by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Nadya gave a talk at University of Houston later that day.