Leonid Tishkov's art makes the surrounding world of habitual objects the material for an artistic comprehension and an object for reflection. In his project "Wars of the Caucasus" Tishkov uses color threads to recreate the outlines of the Caucasus, a beautiful and at the same time dangerous zone of Russian territory. This fragile space includes figures of toy soldiers hanging on threads like mountain climbers on safeguard ropes. They constitute only part of this natural environment, which they do not dominate as they think they do. The majestic space of the mountains can be conquered only by contemplating it in one's inner meditations and never by any physical violence and forcible intrusion.
Biography
Leonid Tishkov was born in 1953 in the Ural mountains region. He currently lives and works in Moscow. Having graduated from medical school as general practitioner, he was a co-editor of a medical encyclopedia and worked as illustrator for a number of newspapers. From 1980s, when he became acquainted with the Moscow conceptualist circles, Tishkov has devoted himself to art. He created a rich world of surrealist characters and symbols, that take part in his poetic narratives, including such creatures as walking stomachs, deep sea divers, people living in elephants’ trunks, and other equally curious personas. Tishkov’s constantly evolving story is told with the use of objects, drawings, paintings, artist’s books, drama plays, photographs and video works. Over the last ten years Tishkov has been working chiefly with installation, photograph and video. His films, set in the Russian countryside, combine the surreal air with ethnography, and private mythology with absurd humor.
Exhibitions of Leonid Tishkov
2008
Singapore Biennale, Singapore
Russian Dream, Bass Museum, Maiami
The Fabric of Myth, Compton Verney Gallery, UK
Art-Index, Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga
2007
Leonid Tishkov, Look Homeward, Center for Contemporary Art Uajzdowski castle, Warsaw, Poland
Progressive Nostalgia, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci,
Prato, Italy,
The Time of storytellers KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
Return to Memory, KUMU Museum of Contemporary Art, Tallinn, Estonia
2006
View on Europe, MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, NY
2003
Berlin-Moscow,1950 -2000,Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
1998
Leonid Tishkov, Dabloid Teater, Fargfabriken, Center for Contemporary Art, Stockholm, Sweden
1995
Leonid Tishkov, Dabloids and Elephants, Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston Ill. USA
1994
Leonid Tishkov, Creaturas, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas Sofia Imber, Venezuela
1993
Leonid Tishkov, Creatures,
Duke University Museum of Art, Durham, NC, USA
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