Talk | Nadya Tolokonnikova and Joey Orr
November 21, 20256:00 pm - 7:30 pm
About the Event
Experience a conversation with the founder of Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova, and MCA Chicago’s Deputy Director and Chief of Curatorial Affairs, Joey Orr, in advance of the opening of the Midwest premiere of her performance installation POLICE STATE. Together they discuss Tolokonnikova’s upcoming MCA project as well as her extended political and performance practice, which confronts authoritarianism with an uncompromising force in streets, on stages, and within museums around the world.
About the Speakers
Nadya Tolokonnikova is a conceptual performance artist, activist, and the creator of Pussy Riot, a global feminist art movement. In 2012, she received a two-year prison term following the anti-Putin performance Punk Prayer, which The Guardian later named among the best artworks of the 21st century. In 2023, Tolokonnikova’s installation, Putin’s Ashes, at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles, propelled her into a new criminal case and put her on Russia’s most wanted criminal list. Her debut museum exhibition, RAGE (2024), was presented at OK Linz, Austria, and the eponymous performance at Neue Nationalgalerie, Germany. Tolokonnikova’s work is in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Museum of Art and Design, New York; and the American Folk Art Museum, New York, among others. With thanks to Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin.
Joey Orr is the Deputy Director and Chief of Curatorial Affairs at the MCA, where he previously served as the Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow. Recent writing has been published in edited and peer-reviewed publications, including his book, A Sourcebook of Performance Labor with Routledge Press. He has served in various editorial roles for many publications, including as an associate editor for the Journal for Artistic Research and currently as a contributing editor for Art Papers magazine. He holds an MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD from Emory University.
Funding
Program
Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Talks is made possible by The Richard and Mary L. Gray Lecture Series through a generous gift to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign.
Generous support is provided by The Antje B. and John J. Jelinek Endowed Lecture and Symposium on Contemporary Art; the Kristina Barr Lectures, which were established through a generous gift by The Barr Fund to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign; The Gloria Brackstone Solow and Eugene A. Solow, MD, Memorial Lecture Series; and the Allen M. Turner Tribute Fund, honoring his past leadership as Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Exhibition
POLICE STATE was produced with generous endowment support from Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family and through The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles’ (MOCA) Fund for Performance with generous funding provided by Betsy Greenberg and The Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.
The MOCA iteration was presented as part of Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family with support from the MOCA Fund for Performance with generous funding provided by Betsy Greenberg and The Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.
Major support for POLICE STATE at the MCA is provided by Paul L. Gray & Dedrea Armour Gray.
Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Performance is provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman.
Generous support is provided by Anne L. Kaplan; and Carol Prins and John Hart/The Jessica Fund.
The MCA is a proud member of the Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District.