The dissident Russian artist known for staging protest performances at the expense of his own body has been transferred to a psychiatric hospital, according to his partner. Pyotr Pavlensky has been detained since setting the door to the Moscow headquarters of the FSB (the KGB’s successor organization) aflame in November.

Pavlensky – FSB headquarters.

The artist’s partner Oksana Shalygina told The Associated Press that he has been institutionalized for a psychiatric evaluation that could take up to 21 days. Pavlensky has often criticized the former Soviet practice of removing voices of dissent from society by declaring them insane, a practice which he does not believe ended with the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Most famously, in 2014 Pavlensky cut off a segment of his ear while situated on top of a wall in Red Square. His aim in that action was to demonstrate how the government could “cut off” an undesirable person from society.

“The knife severs the earlobe from the body. The granite wall of the psychiatric institute separates the sane from the insane. The police give themselves the power to determine the threshold between reason and madness,” Pavlensky explained then, in what now appears to be an almost prophetic fashion.

Following that 2014 action Pavlensky was temporarily institutionalized and released upon being declared sane.

Pyotr Pavlensky on the wall of the Serbsky psychiatry centre after he sliced off part of his earlobe in a 2014 protest he called ‘Segregation.’

Any doubts of that declaration have come from the artist’s history of attention-grabbing protests. Pavlensky gained prominence in 2013 when he nailed his scrotum to Red Square, with other self-mutilating protests including sewing his mouth shut and wrapping himself naked in barbed wire.

Pavlensky has made it clear that Russian authorities should be intimidated by him – on one occasion the artist persuaded his interrogator to quit his job and support his protest instead. This came after Pavlensky faced legal trouble after setting fire to a mound of tires in protest of Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

“I think his work has made many people become more critical and change their worldview,” the former interrogator said regarding Pavlensky.

For now, it is unclear as to whether or not Pavlensky will once again be declared sane, or if he will face further psychiatric detention. The Voice Project will continue to update this story as it develops.