Personifying Body Parts: Politics and Power in Russia
The theme of personified body parts has surfaced again, now in conjunction with Russia’s newly elected president Vladimir Putin. In the style of Gogol’s Nose, the Moscow Museum of Erotic Art created a puppet show portraying the scenario in which Putin lost his penis and turned into his own impotent (and democratic) nemesis, anti-Putin. This is a satirical take on Russia’s constant confusion between political and physical power and on Putin’s fascination with virile power, as documented in this gallery of Putin-as-strongman photos showing the Russian leader half naked and/or engaged in various extreme masculine pursuits.
