Private Moon_Journey to Paris

More than simply dead…Homage to Marie Laurencin
Abandoned moon in a refuse bin – they no longer needed it, only you

Tokyo PalaceHotel for one on the roof of a palace.

But not for you, moon – you tap at the window in vain, they won't open up.

Louvre at night
The moon has laid a silvery trail across the celestial ice.

I'll give her a star found in the yard among rubbish,

leaves and discarded memories.

Moon – despairThe moon fell from the clouds, unaware this railroad was abandoned long ago.

Now she has a companion in misfortune!

Warming my hands in the moonlightThe moon is warmer than this night in La Défense,

where the wind tears hats and leaves from passing trees.

Moon and rain
Mist and rain. Tonight the moon got soaked and fell on the roof of Pen's house in Le Marais.

All around the damp nocturnal air is filled with milky light,

hopefully not dissolving my contours altogether.

Star in a refuse sack
Seeking the star in a refuse sack, you fail to see the moon behind you

Noël
Christmas is here at last!
I will ride to the fairand sell the moon for a handful of silver

Moon concert
Is such happiness really possible –

the moon in the Tuileries Garden shines on you alone

Moon and Vénus callipyge
Homage to Georges Brassens
Moon and Venus, the wind stole your clothes in the night!

Paris, you must judge, who is most beautiful now?

Today’s moon is yesterday’s sun
Homage to the Pioneer Mitya Abrosimov

An accident on the railroad like yesterday's sun

Brassaï’s moonOn the steps of Montmartre you suddenly meet the moon,

leaning on a lamppost to rest as it rises to the sky – the wonder of the night!

Metaphysical landscape with moon
Homage to Giorgio de Chirico
Worked like an office troll till late at night,

here’s the reward – the moon on the street!

Nocturnal parking lot

Stop, car, the moon is sleeping here, don’t disturb it!

Three moons
Homage to Henri Cartier-Bresson
Behind the Saint-Lazare station
six in the morning by the lunar clock.
You leave the moon forever,

the moon will never abandon you

Farewell to the moon

Don’t stop the moon, it will climb to the sky on a beam from the Eiffel Tower

Ringing the moon
The moon is here on the balcony,

but still she is far away and won't hear you ringing.

Interdit sauf la luneForbidden except to the moon,
Only the moon can settle here,
Build towers right up to the sky –
Endless floors with a hint of sorrow and tenderness,

Open to the clouds, the rain and poets who wander in by chance

Moon in the cathedral

On Christmas Eve the moon has found shelter at the Virgin Mary’s feet

Private Moon_Journey to Paris_2009

All images and text by Leonid Tishkov

Moscow Photobiennale_2010_ Private Moon. Journey to Paris

Leonid Tishkov. Private Moon. Journey to Paris



Gallery "City of Capitals" 7th April until 15th May

Moscow, Presnenskaya Quay, 8 - 1

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/03/24/5616521.html

Leonid Tishkov. In Search of the Miraculous

Dates: January 28, 2010 — March 14, 2010 Venue: Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Ermolaevsky, 17 Opening: January 27, 2010, at 7 pm
Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a retrospective show of the Moscow well-known artist Leonid Tishkov an artist, a narrator and a visionary, at the same time ironic and poetic. A total installation, presenting the imaginary worlds of Dabloids, Divers, Stomakis, and other creatures, created by artist within 30 years of his creative work, will take up several floors of the museum. Combining folklore and surrealism, addressing the theme of memory, and using banal subjects, Leonid Tishkov is always true to himself, turning art into a visual theatre. It is essential for the artist to see the world through he eyes of a child, to notice its miraculous manifestations, and, eventually, to turn into a fantasy creature himself.Leonid Tishkov is an integral part of Moscow art scene, a self-sufficient «brand». Few of his contemporaries have retained similar inner creative motivation. Long ago, he stepped over the line of searching for self-identification in art. His strategy lies in the continuous mythmaking, in producing rich and extremely dynamic narrative, in which the diversity of form originates from perpetually generated content diversity.
The display will represent a journey from the Lower World, through the Middle World, to the Upper World. The 4 floors will feature installations-narrations, arranged regardless of the date of execution. The Lower World speaks about Dabloids, Stomakis, Divers, Wooden Logs, People Living in Elephants’ trunks. The Middle-World is represented by biographic works: Knitling, Look at Your House, In My Father’s Field, Mother’s Dress, etc. The Upper-World addresses the sky: Talking to Heaven, Divers from heaven, the Moon, the Star, Solveig, Light is All Around, Ladomir: Objects of Utopia.
The show at Moscow Museum of Modern Art will present new installation «In Search of the Miraculous», dedicated to Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who went missing in the Atlantic Ocean 30 years ago.

Specially for the exhibition was published a catalog "In Search of the Miraculous" of 430 pages in color

http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y.aspx?DocsID=1311904

http://www.gazeta.ru/culture/2010/01/28/a_3317604.shtml

http://www.gazeta.ru/culture/2010/01/28/a_3317604.shtml?/video/3317686.shtml

http://see-you-in-moscow.com/blog/artists_profile_leonid_tishkov/2010-01-22-32

http://mainpeople.ru/photo/7/Leonid_Tishkov_V_poiskah_chudesnogo_Izbrannye_raboty_1975_2010_gg:1/

http://faz-community.faz.net/blogs/moskauermonitor/archive/2010/02/21/leonid-tischkows-moderner-mensch-das-kind-im-tiefseetaucheranzug.aspx

Leonid Tishkov, Ballade lumineuse at Taiss gallery_Paris

http://www.lepoint.fr/guide-sorties/2010-02-16/galerie-taiss-la-lune-voyageuse-de-leonid-tishkov/2017/0/424614

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeVAQEvyd0E

http://www.taissgalerie.com/en/exhibitions/

http://www.baltinfo.ru/news/V-Parizhe-zvuchit-Luchezarnaya-ballada-130079

Private Moon in Linz_4

Photographs by Otto Saxinger, Miklos Boros

Faith in the Ideal

FAITH IN THE IDEAL

I see an ideal kingdom in a stony and sleepy land. Artists founded that kingdom and inhabited it with their images.
An artist is like a mad gardener who has grown a garden in the desert. Generations of them brought earth in baskets there, sowed flower seeds and then every day went for water so far away that by the time they were back there were but a few drops of water left at the bottom of their buckets - the scorching sun had dried it up along the way. Yet, those few drops were enough to keep the garden alive.
I live there behind a fence, growing images that, like climbing plants, twine round and sustain my reality, restore my lost memory and prevent the decrepit and weak walls of the house of my life from crumbling down.
I thus bolster my understanding that life is not absurd and that my existence there is not a flash of some chance light or a perishable spark. What surrounds me? What surrounded me when I was an embryo? Out of non-existence and on to the edge of a precipice, I am trying to stay on the threshold of reality.
With but a movement of his pencil or an idea alone the artist is capable of creating an ideal world of his own free from violence, market and justice.
Reality – a chaotic and meaningless material world – is but a sketch to be redone on the body of the Universe, and this is within the artist’s power. Before being born, the Diver creates the world out of nothing.
Does the artist have to stick to the images produced by a legion of designers and to reflect pictures of the outside world with the help of distorting mirrors, thus multiplying them ad infinitum? Wouldn’t it be better to turn the mirror to oneself and to open up in front of it to one’s metaphysical depths?
Faith in the ideal and the fantastic reveals facts of different intensity of being and opens various ontological horizons.
Isn’t it a privilege to be an idealist nowadays? To decide to become an artist means today to follow the road of St. Francis of Assisi. When you cover this road you will be able to talk to birds, and angels will share their secrets with you, as they did with Swedenborg in his time. You will be able to notice small and insignificant things because they mirror something eternal and significant.
Artists and poets allow themselves to believe in the impossible and the unattainable, to build utopias and castles in the air and to inhabit the earth with imaginary worlds. We can thus show other roads rather than one and the same that a generalized human being usually takes.
Artists exist in society, serving as fine membranes that connect the visible world with the invisible fields around. Being fine and insignificant, they are thus themselves invisible. Always on the edge, the finer they get the closer they are to non-existence, they disappear without a trace, dissolving in their works. This worthy lot bordering on selfless devotion is not chosen but granted from time out of mind. One can be like that only if one believes in the ideal.
What ideal artists create is above life, and life cannot explain it. They create their own space that is governed by imagination, pervaded with happiness and attracts those around.
Their art is autonomous and part and parcel of them; they shed the burden of memory, get over knowledge and become innocent. Every time the products of such artists are pure and independent, and their work itself is the achievement of freedom.
Art gives us a chance to become free, and in this freedom we find faith in the ideal. Wherever there was doubt before, faith roots itself, and immediately despair gives way to hope and sorrow becomes joy.

Leonid Tishkov, 12 July 2006