The works are exhibited at the Moni Lazariston
Pavel Shevelev is showing a large serie of black and white and colour drawings realized during Platon Lebedev’s and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s trial in Moscow (June 2004 – May 2005) . Both were members of the MENATEP company which was the general stockholder of the oil company YUKOS. They were accused for tax evasion and fraud, firstly imprisoned without a trial and later on were sentenced to 8 years in jail.
During the trial’s last month, the artist was visiting daily and drawing the judges, the lawyers, the accused who were kept in a cage, the sleeping guards and important or minor figures and moments. Reapropriating in a very acid way the tradition of the ‘sketch of justice’ (as taking pictures or filming is forbidden during a trial and specialized journalists are using the sketches made by professionals), he is making public and he is giving access to the complexities but also trivialities of what was one more scandal in Poutine’s reign.
Catherine David
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