MOSCOW—Petr Pavlensky has cut off his earlobe, sewn his mouth shut, and nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, all in the name of political protest.

Russian artist Petr Pavlensky poses after setting fire to the doors of the headquarters of Russia's security service, the successor to the KGB, in central Moscow early Monday. ( NIGINA BEROEVA / AFP/Getty Images )

But on Sunday night, Pavlensky, a gaunt, 31- year old conceptual artist from St. Petersburg, unveiled arguably his most combative artwork yet: setting fire to the doors of the building that houses Russia’s Federal Security Service, the former headquarters of the Soviet-era KGB. In a video of the protest published on Vimeo, Pavlensky stands motionless, looking straight into the camera as flames lick at the doorway of the iconic Lubyanka building behind him. Soon, a police officer rushes over to arrest him. Police on Monday said that Pavlensky was being investigated for vandalism “motivated by hatred or hostility to a social group,” a charge that carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

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In a note published under the video, he said the demonstration was a response to political terror employed by the government. “The burning door of the Lubyanka is the glove thrown by society into the face of the terrorist threat,” Pavlensky wrote, employing a duelling metaphor. “The Federal Security Service acts using the method of ceaseless terror and holds power over 146,000,000 people. Fear turns free people into a sticky mass of desperate bodies.”

In 2012, Pavlensky sewed his mouth shut in support of the jailed members of the protest punk band Pussy Riot.

Pavlensky nailed his scrotum to the stones of Moscow's Red Square during a protest on Nov. 10, 2013.

A nude Pavlensky wrapped himself with barbed wire during a protest in May 2013. ( Artur Bainozarov )

He said the threat of violence and surveillance provoked a “defensive reflex.” “This is a reflex of the struggle for one’s own life,” he said. “And life is worth enough to begin fighting for.” Pavlensky, who first attracted attention in 2012 for sewing his mouth shut in support of the jailed punk protest group Pussy Riot, has welcomed attention from investigators as a way “to suck the authorities into his art.”

“Criminal cases open a door for me to get inside the mechanics of the system — the investigators, the court system, psychiatrists — and allow me to work there,” Pavlensky said in a recent profile in Politico. Pavlensky is already on trial for vandalism in a separate case. In February 2013, he erected barricades made of tires on Tripartite Bridge in St. Petersburg and set them ablaze in an imitation of the anti-government protests that overthrew the government in neighbouring Ukraine.

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During his trial, Pavlensky has maintained a vow of silence in the courtroom. One young investigator tasked with interrogating Pavlensky changed sides and has sought to defend him before a judge. While Pavlensky has taken inspiration from other Russian protest art movements, including the Voina art collective, Pavlensky’s has more regularly employed a motif of self-harm. Protesting the “police state,” he nailed his scrotum (pierced in advance) to the cobblestones of Red Square in November 2013 on a national holiday for police officers. In May 2013, he wrapped himself in a cocoon of barbed wire, lying motionless for half an hour in front of St. Petersburg’s city legislature. During the investigation against him, Pavlensky underwent several psychiatric analyses, where he was declared sane. In Oct. 24, protesting the use of similar analyses to jail political foes of the government, he scaled the walls of a Moscow psychiatric centre, and promptly sliced off his earlobe.

In October 2014, Pavlensky cut off a part of his earlobe while sitting on the wall enclosing the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow during his protest action titled "Segregation." ( MAXIM ZMEYEV )

Petr Pavlensky, 31, right, is also currently on trial for vandalism in a separate case. In February 2013, he erected barricades made of tires on Tripartite Bridge in St. Petersburg and set them ablaze. ( Dmitry Lovetsky )

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