LONDON – UK-based adult streaming platform and TV channel Babestation has announced the company is sponsoring an exhibition in London by controversial artist Pyotr Pavlensky, calling the display of Pavlensky’s work at a/political’s new exhibition space “a UK first.”

The space opened to the public yesterday, with Pornopolitics and other Precedents, a new exhibition by the Paris-based Pavlensky.

“Within this exhibition, Pavlensky introduces his theory of ‘Subject-Object Art’, utilizing three milestone events as case studies: Threat (2015), Lighting (2018) and Pornopolitics (2020),” Babestation explained in the announcement.

“Pavlensky is currently awaiting trial in France after his most recent artwork, Pornopolitics, derailed French Mayoral elections and sent shockwaves through Macron’s La République En Marche! Party,” Babestation added.  “This unprecedented partnership linking pornography and fine art examines the artists right to artistic freedom as he exhibits the works for the first time. Pavlensky has been censored and oppressed by authorities in Russia, and then in France, so he decided to hold his exhibition in London.”

“The whole history of art is the history of the collision between artists and power,” Pavlensky said.

Born in 1984 in Leningrad, Pavlensky has been making art since 2012. Since 2019, his focus has been ‘Subject-Object’. Pavlensky lives in Paris, where he was granted asylum after leaving Russia in 2017.

“There is currently an ongoing debate about the role and scope of adult-oriented material in society, with even MPs watching it in the House of Commons,” noted a Babestation rep in explaining the company’s interest in sponsoring Pavlensky’s exhibit.

As an organization, a/political says it “explores radical knowledge through the principle of Cultural Terror.” Working within a range of artistic methodologies, the collective “platforms voices that undermine the dominant narratives of our time.” a/political “functions through interventions, commissions and a collection of modern and contemporary art.”

Pavlensky’s exhibition is open to the public from the October 12-16, from 10am to 6pm local time. The gallery is located at Bacon Factory, 6 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AA.

For more information, please contact press@babestation.tv and info@a-political.org.