The Russian performance artist Petr Pavlensky has appeared in court in Moscow for preliminary hearings in a case that could see him jailed for three years.

In November, Pavlensky set fire to the doors of the headquarters of the FSB, Russia’s security service and the successor agency to the KGB. The artist had his actions recorded on video and then posed for photographs in front of the burning doors of the imposing Lubyanka building. He has been held in pre-trial detention since.

Pavlensky was led into court on Thursday morning in handcuffs accompanied by several police officers and a dog. He told the judge he does not plan to speak during the case, as he does not wish to interact with the court. His lawyer, Olga Dinze, said Pavlensky wanted the trial be seen as a continuation of the performance.

He is being tried on the charge of destroying cultural heritage, for damage done to the door. Dinze said the charge was nonsense as the door had only been installed in 2008 and no other part of the building had suffered damage. Thousands of people were interrogated and shot at the Lubyanka building during Stalin-era purges.

Pavlensky plans to ask the court to change the charge to one of terrorism, which carries a much heavier sentence. However, Dinze said this would not be the official position of the defence: “He believes the court is a farce, so wants to take the farce to its logical conclusion. But as the defence, we can’t officially ask the court to try him for a more serious crime.”



Pavlensky in front of the Lubyanka doors. Photograph: Reuters

Pavlensky gained notoriety for performances including nailing his scrotum to Red Square, slicing off part of his ear, and wrapping himself in barbed wire. He said the performance on Red Square was “a metaphor for the apathy, political indifference and fatalism of modern Russian society”.

Concurrently, Pavlensky is being tried for another performance, held in St Petersburg in February 2014, during which he recreated a miniature version of the Maidan protests which were then raging in Kiev. He built a mini barricade and set them on fire while waving Ukrainian flags. The court in St Petersburg had planned to close the case due to the statute of limitations expiring, but Pavlensky himself demanded the case be heard.

During a hearing in Moscow on Wednesday, the defence called three women as witnesses. Friends of the artist said the women were sex workers whom they had approached and shown a video of Pavlensky’s performance, and asked if they would agree to testify.

All three women said they did not believe Pavlensky’s work was art and believed him to be harmful to society. “This is not art, an artist should draw pictures of daisies on walls, and bring beauty into the world, and he does nothing beautiful and nothing good,” one of the women said, according to court reports.

“It was his idea, and he was very happy with how it went,” said Dinze.