Leonid Tishkov

Leonid Tishkov’s poetic and metaphysic oeuvre is realised in a diverse and often unconventional range of media, including installations, sculpture, video, photography, works on paper and books. Tishkov started his career making cartoon like works in the 1980s that focused with ironic, black humor and political aspects. Since the beginning of the 1990s, however, his work moved increasingly towards large-scale installations that aimed to engage the viewer into absurdist situations with fictional cartoon characters and an admixture of theatrical action. This theatrical performances “Dabloids”, “Deep Sea Divers”, “Living in the Trunks”, who after turned into installations ( “Dabloid Factory”, “Divers” bronze sculptures ). At the same time Tishkov drawn to the theme of memory, creates a set of objects, videos and photos about his native place – the Urals and late mother, using different kinds of folk art and found materials – clothing and household utensils ( “The Knitling”, 2002, “Divers from Heaven”, 2004). Since 2000 the artist intensifies the romantic, even magical tradition, which was fully manifested in a series of performances “Anthology of Heaven ‘(1999-2002), carried out on the roof of the artist’s studio and a long-play history of “Private Moon “(2003 – 2010). For the first time made the light object in shape of crescent Moon to the installation for open space, traveled to different countries and continents including Russia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, France and Switzerland.

Leonid Tishkov was born into a school teacher’s family in small town of Russia, Urals in 1953, and now lives and works in Moscow. He has participated in numerous important group exhibitions including Berlin-Moscow Moscow-Berlin 1950-2000, Berlin, Martin Gropius Bau (2002), Eye on Europe, 1960 to Now – MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, NY (2006), Fabric of the Myth, Compton Verney Gallery, UK (2007), Singapore Biennale (2008) and Moscow Biennale (2009). Solo exhibitions include Nasher Museum of Duke University , Durham (1993), Museo de Arte Contemporeneo de Caracas Sofia Imber, Venezuela (1995), Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston (1996), Fargfabriken, Center for Contemporary Art, Stockholm, Sweden (1998), Center for Contemporary Art Uajzdowski castle, Warsaw (2007), Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan ( 2009), Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2010).