ST. PETERSBURG, December 22 (RAPSI, Kirill Chulkov) – Prosecutors withdrew their appeal against a court decision to dismiss a request for psychiatric evaluation for artist Pyotr Pavlensky who is known for controversial performances, his attorney Svetlana Ratnikova told RAPSI on Monday.

The Investigative Committee has filed three applications seeking psychiatric evaluation for Pavlensky, and all of them were dismissed.

Pavlensky has repeatedly used self-mutilation as an artistic medium for politically themed expression.

He sewed up his mouth in July 2012 and stood at the Kazan Cathedral with a poster in support of jailed Pussy Riot members.

Pavlensky lay down last May on the ground in front of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly naked with barbed wire around his body.

In November 2013, also naked, Pavlensky nailed his genitals to the pavement at Red Square in central Moscow.

Pavelnsky and his accomplices staged a protest in February near the Church of the Savior on Blood in St. Petersburg. They burned car tires, waved Ukrainian flags and banged sheet metal with sticks. The police arrested several people, including Pavlensky, and opened an administrative case on minor hooliganism. The court issued a 10,000 ruble ($165) fine for Pavlensky.

Finally, in October he staged an eccentric stunt on the roof of the Serbsky Mental Institution in Moscow by cutting off one of his ear lobes.