Controversial Russian Artist Stripped Of Human Rights Award After They Found Out What He Wanted To Do With The Money

The Human Rights Foundation withdrew the Vaclav Havel Prize from Pyotr Pavlensky – the man who nailed his scrotum to Red Square, tried to burn down the headquarters of the successor agency to the KGB and call it “art,” and saw Russia’s top art prize cancelled after he was nominated for it – because he planned to pay the legal bills of a violent group in the country’s Far East.

Some Countries Support Artists Directly (But There Are Tradeoffs)

“Whether or not artistry is a formal profession in the eyes of the state, and what states do or don’t do to support that profession, reflects different agendas within different political systems. While the American model mostly distributes public funding for the arts indirectly, via tax deductions for nonprofit organizations and their donors, many other governments provide substantial direct support to individual artists.”