10.1.09
9.1.09
“Farewell to the Christmas Tree” in Brooklyn
'Farewell to the Christmas Tree' by Leonid Tishkov in collaborated with Sergey Tishkov,2001, 15 min., music: Membranoids, Sergey Starostin.A video and photographs showing portraits of abandoned dead pine trees lying in dustbins after the feasts. The video shows the burying of a pine tree in Tsaritsino cemetery, Moscow.
Walking a Fine Line:Parables of the Sublime and the Subversive in Russian Video Art
January,9
Artists confront mystification and sacralization, engagement and spiritual detachment with strategies ranging from epatage to derision, eccentricity, and radical activism. Whom to blame? What to do? The viewer is invited to ponder upon these and other perennial "Russian" questions and find his/her own "fine line" of authentic response. Research on characteristics of national and local identity is one of the main foci of the Ekaterinburg NCCA. The search for identity in post-Soviet Russian society and the development of a new value system have been raised in interdisciplinary projects like "Novorusskoe (The NouveauRussian)" (2005), "In Transition Russia 2008", videoprogram "Dreams in the Epicenter" (2007), and others. The penchant to extremes, paradoxicality, and irrationalism have become stereotypical characteristics of "Russianness". In such a way, contemplative submersion sometimes rather easily turns into subversion, an arrant hooliganism. The fact of contemporary reality is that the radical other is embedded into the surface of what is already here, which is none other than the everyday, the event of life itself. Shifting perspectives, whether as a radical gesture, or just slightly, we are all groping to find that most authentic fine line that connects the limit and its beyond, the spiritual self and the social other. Russian artists demonstrate how a national feature speaks the common or universal truth.
Artists include: Leonid Tishkov, Provmyza, Victor Alimpiev, Blue Soup, Victoria Ilyushkina, Yury Vasiliev, Victor Davydov, Alexey Buldakov, Olga Chernysheva, Blue Noses, PG, Bombily group, Dmitry Bulnygin, Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva, and others.
Curated by: Ksenia Fedorova (ksenfedorova@gmail.com)
Alisa Prudnikova (alisa@uralncca.ru)
http://www.monkeytownhq.com/1_9_09.html
Nikodim in Napoli EM Arts and in Seattle
Nikodim on Northwest Film Forum Seattle in November 6, 2008Stars of Russian Video Art
1. PROVMYZA (Galina Myznikova and Sergey Provorov, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia)“Wet chicken” (3min 40sec)“Fugue” (19min 10sec)“Slippery mountain” (6min 25sec)These artists work in various spheres of contemporary art employing a wide range of multi-media means.
2. Victor Alimpiev (Moscow, Russia)“Sweet nightingale” (6min 50sec)Victor Alimpiev assumes the isolated viewpoint of an observer in order to capture both spontaneous and controlled nuances of human expression and behavior.
3. Lyudmila Gorlova (Moscow, Russia)“Happy end” (6min 30 sec)Lyudmila Gorlova films wedding parties on Vorobiovy Mountain, which is where the newly wed of Moscow traditionally visit. 4. Olga Chernyshova (Moscow, Russia)“The train” (7min 15sec)Chernysheva’s best know work The Train (2003) is a remarkable video journey through the carriages of a Russian intercity train that recalls the Constructivist cinema of Dziga Vertov.
5. The Blue Soup Group (Moscow, Russia)“Panorama”, “Vestibule”, “Gas” (4min 20sec) The piece references the early days of cinema when dioramas and panoramas were in common use. The camera’s 360 panning shot can be read as a metaphor of man’s life, seen as a whole.
6. The Blue Noses (Moscow-Novosibirsk, Russia)“Sex-art” (3min 10sec)“If I were Harry Potter” (4min)The term “Nailed-up Video” was coined by Viacheslav Mizin and Alexandr Shaburov in 2003. The works they produce are formally inventive yet extremely cynical in terms of content.
7. Leonid Tishkov (Moscow, Russia)“Nikodim” The story of a man’s journey (6min)Tishkov’s continually evolving narrative and space is mapped in drawings, photogrphs,prints, illustrated books, paintings, sculptures, plays and video installations. Today his work is widely shown throughout Europe and the United States, as well as in Russia. The film offers a figure of a man, an artist himself.
http://nwfilmforum.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/stars-of-russian-video-art/
http://www.em-arts.org/independent/films/nikodim
8.1.09
Knitling at Compton Verney Gallery UK
KNITLING
In Memory Of My Mother
On this old photograph I’m in the center, puny and week,
surrounded by my relations, all of them bursting with life,
merriment and happiness. This is the wedding of my cousin
Boris in 1959 in the town of Polevskoye in the Sverdlovsk region.
Many of those from that photograph are no longer with us. Their
clothes were distributed among the relatives. When clothes
become threadbare they are torn into strips and used for knitting
rugs. Each such rug in the Urals houses preserves the memory
of deceased people as if it were a laser disk bearing recordings of
their voices and faces.
When my mother was 85 I asked her to make a knitted
suit for me out of the clothes that used to belong to our relatives.
When you put it on it preserves you, it hugs and embraces you,
like my relatives did in that old photograph. I called that suit
In Memory Of My Mother
On this old photograph I’m in the center, puny and week,
surrounded by my relations, all of them bursting with life,
merriment and happiness. This is the wedding of my cousin
Boris in 1959 in the town of Polevskoye in the Sverdlovsk region.
Many of those from that photograph are no longer with us. Their
clothes were distributed among the relatives. When clothes
become threadbare they are torn into strips and used for knitting
rugs. Each such rug in the Urals houses preserves the memory
of deceased people as if it were a laser disk bearing recordings of
their voices and faces.
When my mother was 85 I asked her to make a knitted
suit for me out of the clothes that used to belong to our relatives.
When you put it on it preserves you, it hugs and embraces you,
like my relatives did in that old photograph. I called that suit
“Knitling” from the Russian word for a “knitted garment”.
Now it is a new being created by the two main
components of my art: the phenomena of time and place.
Knitling keeps the warmth of my native village as it
embodies the memory of it. The threadbare coverlets of my family
are torn into strips and are wound into numerous balls bringing
to mind the ball of threads leading the heroes of the Russian fairy
tales.
Knitling keeps the warmth of my native village as it
embodies the memory of it. The threadbare coverlets of my family
are torn into strips and are wound into numerous balls bringing
to mind the ball of threads leading the heroes of the Russian fairy
tales.
The Urals folk craft of rug knitting was thus turned into a
magic ritual conjuring up the spirits of our ancestors, connecting
the souls into a spiral of eternity, a solar sign, and a cocoon of
memory; and so we obtain a new mythical being: a knitted
creature who joined the series of ancient surrealist types, such
as the house-spirit and the bathhouse spirit. Putting on such a
Knitling you wear a piece of clothes from several generations at
once becoming a nameless and faceless being, and so you attain
immortality.
magic ritual conjuring up the spirits of our ancestors, connecting
the souls into a spiral of eternity, a solar sign, and a cocoon of
memory; and so we obtain a new mythical being: a knitted
creature who joined the series of ancient surrealist types, such
as the house-spirit and the bathhouse spirit. Putting on such a
Knitling you wear a piece of clothes from several generations at
once becoming a nameless and faceless being, and so you attain
immortality.
Leonid Tishkov, 2002
Stills from video "Knitling", 2002, 6 min
http://www.newstatesman.com/200510240031
Private Moon installations from 2003 until now
 |
| Rene Magritte, 16th September 1956, oil on canvas |
Moon installation in the open air Art Klyazma festival 2003
Apokryfos at NCCA Moscow 2003
Private Moon at Bargehouse London 2005
Private Moon at Nanto Japan 2006
Private Moon and Solveig installations at Latvian National Museum of Art 2008
Exhibition «A(rt)R(ussia)T(oday) - index»With support from the Latvian Ministry of Culture, as part of Russian Culture Days in Latvia, the Russian State Contemporary Art Centre and the Latvian National Museum of Art’s exhibition centre «Arsen?ls» have organized a large-scale and heretofore-unseen-in-Latvia project - «A(rt)R(ussia)T(oday) - index».
25 artistic projects are on display whose creators hail from various regional cities – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizniy Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. Riga has not seen such a major Russian art exhibit in the past 20 years.
»ART - index», taking into account the amount of knowledge Western art fans and professionals have, offers a solid overview of current art trends, styles and innovations in Russia and the key artists behind them. Such names like Oleg Kulik, Vadim Zaharov, Leonid Tishkov, Sergei Shutov, the group «Blue Noses» and «Провмыза» are among those featured.
The show is made up of major projects and installations, displayed in clever point-counterpoint, i.e. the works of young artists are shown in contrast to the works of established artists. The essence of this exhibit is the stance taken by its curators – to reflect Russian art trends as complex and contradictory.
»ART - index», taking into account the amount of knowledge Western art fans and professionals have, offers a solid overview of current art trends, styles and innovations in Russia and the key artists behind them. Such names like Oleg Kulik, Vadim Zaharov, Leonid Tishkov, Sergei Shutov, the group «Blue Noses» and «Провмыза» are among those featured.
The show is made up of major projects and installations, displayed in clever point-counterpoint, i.e. the works of young artists are shown in contrast to the works of established artists. The essence of this exhibit is the stance taken by its curators – to reflect Russian art trends as complex and contradictory.
7.1.09
Private Moon in Singapore on Biennale WONDER 2008
Singapore poet Leong Liew Geok inspired the Private Moon installation
Moon at window sill,
Smiling crescent parked outside,
Unwilling to budge
On flat roof with me
Silent witness of lit rooms:
Unknown company
Bent over with you
Piggyback-rider,
to gauge—Water below bridge!
My yoke of white jade,
Sole passenger to ferry
Wherever I row
Your Brightness on sled
I lug across waves of snow.
Why can’t You float home?
At this opening
You’ll wait, light at tunnel’s end,
Anticipating
I’ll come to take you
Home to your usual table ….
Here—eat these apples!
Stuck on snowy roof
You’re prostrate, an empty stage
I’ll shovel upright
You’re there, attic moon,
Before I end an antique
Trip to count cobwebs
Side by side we lie—
Keep your whole self covered, else
I won’t get to sleep!
Leong Liew Geok 3 October 2008
Dr Leong Liew Geok, an English professor, sent me these seven haikus based on an installation at City Hall. She’s written two volumes of poetry so far: “Love is Not Enough” and “Women without Men”. A third one, “Passions”, is on the way.
http://www.singaporebiennale.org/index.html
"Private Moon" by Leonid Tishkov
PRIVATE MOON
Writer Chesterton once said that there couldn’t be a personal faith
as there couldn’t be a personal sun or a personal moon. In Russia
everything is the other way round: we are faced with life one to
one, and we are completely lonely in the face of the problem of
time, that is, the problem of life and death, the problem of losses
and gains, the moon, the sun, and everything in this life. We could,
conceivably, turn to someone for support. But we are still lonely…
However, that shouldn’t make us grieve or suffer. Loneliness of
this sort means that we exist, we are here, we are at the center of
the universe and we are comparable to the Moon, to the other
celestial bodies.
“Private Moon” is a visual poem telling the story of a man
who met the Moon and stayed with her for the rest of his life. In
the upper world, in fact in the attic of his own house, he saw the
Moon falling off from the sky. Once she was hiding from the Sun
in a dark and damp tunnel. But the passing trains frightened her.
Now she came to this man’s house. Having wrapped the Moon
with warm blankets he treated her with autumn apples, gave her
a cup of tea, and when she got well he took her in his boat across
the dark river to the high bank overgrown with moon pine-trees.
He descended into the lower world dressed in the clothes of his
deceased father and then returned from there lighting up his path
with his personal Moon. Crossing the borderline between the two
worlds across a narrow bridge, immersed in a dream and taking
care of this heavenly creature, the man became a mythological
being living in a real world as in a fairytale.
Each photograph is a poetic tale, a little poem in its own right.
Therefore each picture is accompanied by my own verse, which I
wrote when I drew my sketches for the photographs. So it turns
out that the Moon overcomes our loneliness in the universe
uniting many of us around it.
Leonid Tishkov
Photographs by Leonid Tishkov & Boris Bendikov, 2002-2005
1.
Like Magritte’s
Day and Night
The moon was stuck in a pine tree’s crown
a needle adhered to its radient sleeve
2.
The sky is near.
Open the attic and you’ll see
there next to the wasp nest
rings the blinding light
of the lost moon
3.
Open the closet
there among the old coats, the moon
hides from people
4.
Autumn is so chilly
even the moon has caught a cold
5.
I cross the dark river
to the high bank
where the lunar evergreens grow
6.
I grope about in the dark
carrying the heavenly light on my back
in a swarm of sparkling bees
7.
The Moscow Moon
in a starless sky
has sat down on the edge of a roof
8.
I invite the moon to tea
like a lump of sugar
the damp night dissolves the moon in
an apple tree
9.
After everyone has gone to bed
go to the window and there
the crescent moon has appeared to you
10.
A bundle of light is the moon
on a sleigh. The sky
worries, when will he return?
Where have they taken him?
11.
Like a lunar unicorn
Under the covers she
shines even brighter
12.
The funeral of the moon-every morning
Come nightfall you discover the body of the newborn moon
and help return it to the sky
leaving a mere trace in the snow
a thawing light impression
Leonid Tishkov 2003
Writer Chesterton once said that there couldn’t be a personal faith
as there couldn’t be a personal sun or a personal moon. In Russia
everything is the other way round: we are faced with life one to
one, and we are completely lonely in the face of the problem of
time, that is, the problem of life and death, the problem of losses
and gains, the moon, the sun, and everything in this life. We could,
conceivably, turn to someone for support. But we are still lonely…
However, that shouldn’t make us grieve or suffer. Loneliness of
this sort means that we exist, we are here, we are at the center of
the universe and we are comparable to the Moon, to the other
celestial bodies.
“Private Moon” is a visual poem telling the story of a man
who met the Moon and stayed with her for the rest of his life. In
the upper world, in fact in the attic of his own house, he saw the
Moon falling off from the sky. Once she was hiding from the Sun
in a dark and damp tunnel. But the passing trains frightened her.
Now she came to this man’s house. Having wrapped the Moon
with warm blankets he treated her with autumn apples, gave her
a cup of tea, and when she got well he took her in his boat across
the dark river to the high bank overgrown with moon pine-trees.
He descended into the lower world dressed in the clothes of his
deceased father and then returned from there lighting up his path
with his personal Moon. Crossing the borderline between the two
worlds across a narrow bridge, immersed in a dream and taking
care of this heavenly creature, the man became a mythological
being living in a real world as in a fairytale.
Each photograph is a poetic tale, a little poem in its own right.
Therefore each picture is accompanied by my own verse, which I
wrote when I drew my sketches for the photographs. So it turns
out that the Moon overcomes our loneliness in the universe
uniting many of us around it.
Leonid Tishkov
Photographs by Leonid Tishkov & Boris Bendikov, 2002-2005
Like Magritte’s
Day and Night
The moon was stuck in a pine tree’s crown
a needle adhered to its radient sleeve
2.
The sky is near.
Open the attic and you’ll see
there next to the wasp nest
rings the blinding light
of the lost moon
Open the closet
there among the old coats, the moon
hides from people
4.
Autumn is so chilly
even the moon has caught a cold
5.
I cross the dark river
to the high bank
where the lunar evergreens grow
6.
I grope about in the dark
carrying the heavenly light on my back
in a swarm of sparkling bees
7.
The Moscow Moon
in a starless sky
has sat down on the edge of a roof
8.
I invite the moon to tea
like a lump of sugar
the damp night dissolves the moon in
an apple tree
9.
After everyone has gone to bed
go to the window and there
the crescent moon has appeared to you
10.
A bundle of light is the moon
on a sleigh. The sky
worries, when will he return?
Where have they taken him?
11.
Like a lunar unicorn
Under the covers she
shines even brighter
12.
The funeral of the moon-every morning
Come nightfall you discover the body of the newborn moon
and help return it to the sky
leaving a mere trace in the snow
a thawing light impression
Leonid Tishkov 2003
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