Die Reise nach St. Petersburg - Benefiz-Ausstellung für 'Pussy Riot'

In China, the artist Ai Weiwei is harassed, in Russia there
are others – such as the women of the punk rock band
Pussy Riot.

The legal proceedings against and ultimate condemnation of
Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova resulted in a two year prison camp sentence
for the young artists on August 17, 2012. This process was
a revealing farce and an act of despotism, a demonstration
of authoritarian power, which could hardly be surpassed in
obscenity.

The fact that the penalty for Yekaterina Samutsevich was
suspended on October 10th to probation, takes nothing
away from this political show trial of scandalous disregard
for any rule of law or and does not change the situation for
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who are now
in prison camps known to be particulary severe.

The freedom of artistic expression, as irritating as it can be,
is the foundation for the work of a gallerist too. If this
freedom is under threat, the work of a gallerist in mediating
and promoting artistic agency is threatened to the same
extent.

This is why we have decided – also to keep this important
subject on the agenda – to postpone our planned mid-
October to mid-December 2012 exhibition and instead
organize a Benefit Exhibition in support of Pussy Riot.

With more than 70 works from eleven artists – Abetz &
Drescher, Wiebke Bartsch, Selket Chlupka, Claus Feldmann,
Yago Hortal, Wolfgang Neumann, Tim Plamper, Fernando M.
Romero, Snapple and Franziska Strauss – , partially
presented in Petersburg hanging, ‘The Journey to St.
Petersburg’ is by far the largest exhibition we have ever
shown.