Journey of the Private Moon around the World Galleries

Project The Private Moon is a work in progress: a mobile installation and visual poem telling the story of a man who met the Moon and stayed with her forever.
Leonid Tishkov has taken her on a journey for 2003 until 2005 in Moscow and around the city, collaborating with photographer Boris Bendikov to create the stunning images that accompany his moon and poetry.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov & Boris Bendikov

Depuis 2003, Leonid Tishkov, artiste russe né dans les montagnes de l'Oural, balade sa lune, un croissant lumineux qu'il installe sur les toits, les balcons, dans les jardins. Dans le cadre de l'Année France-Russie, la galerie Taïss l'a invité et a produit sa série de photos prises à Paris, durant deux semaines, en décembre dernier. Avant de venir, Leonid avait réalisé, depuis Moscou, de très beaux dessins, inspirés par le photographe Brassaï, des aquarelles et des scénarios mettant en scène les lieux de la capitale française où il poserait sa lune et la ferait photographier, la nuit, par son compagnon de balade : Tim Parchikov. Les photos sont accrochées non loin de ces esquisses. Quelle poésie ! Sur les berges de la Seine, près d'une poubelle irradiée de lumière, sur un banc des Tuileries et les marches de Montmartre, devant la Tour Eiffel et les buildings de La Défense, sur le toit du Palais de Tokyo... la lune de Tishkov brille, parfois sous la vraie, plus petite qu'elle, et illumine la vie de Paris d'une lueur surréaliste. C'est très beau et cela se passe de mots. Et, par la fenêtre, magie, mirage, la lune de Tishkov apparaît sur le toit de la galerie !

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov & Tim Parchikov

Miracles can happen in this realm: the moon comes down from the heavens, glistening polar bears walk on ice floats, white clouds bathe in the sea together with blue whales and delicate icebergs float in the sky. The snow there emits light and the melting glacier calls out to us, humans, whispering “I am still alive”.
My private moon helps turn our earth into a magical space, which must be preserved as the supreme treasure.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov

American Civil War landmarks aren’t usually associated with Russian conceptual art. Yet the Antietam National Battlefield in western Maryland is precisely where artist Leonid Tishkov’s handmade, illuminated moon landed in early September. Tishkov’s Moon evokes a strong sense of melancholy and whimsy on a site that was once home to the bloodiest one-day battle in US history. A series of photographs captures the crescent-shaped moon sitting atop a church table, resting in a pigsty and lying on the ground, blanketed by a US flag like a fallen soldier.
These photographs and more are part of Private Moon: America, an exhibition at the Hand Print Workshop International (HPWI) in Alexandria, Virginia, where Tishkov is artist-in-residence through September. Since arriving stateside, Tishkov and his Moon have visited major landmarks across Washington, Maryland and Virginia.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov

Human can never pluck the moon,
But she always goes with our step.
Shines as a mirror over red palace,
And thru the green mist she glitters.
These lines by Li Bai became prophetic for artist Leonid Tishkov. For ten years he has been wandering all over the world with a moon, to be more precise – with an electric crescent moon, like a lunar dervish, having visited with his companion many places across the world. In 2012, the artist travelled to the island Formosa, or modern Taiwan. This journey resulted in the exhibition in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, in the south of the island.
Project is accomplished with the help of Kaohsiung City Government, City Portal: Museum Park Public Art Project, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov and Po-I Chen

PRIVATE MOON, 2010, THE MOON IN FRONT RANGITOTO VOLCANIC ISLAND, THE HAURAKI GULF NEAR AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, BY LEONID TISHKOV 'Luna privada', instalación en una isla volcánica de Nueva Zelanda del 'poeta de la luz' Leonid Tishkov

Photo by Leonid Tishkov and Marcus Williams / SP5 Unitec

In 2013 an exhibition of light installations was held in the capital of Kazakhstan - Alma Ata city. Leonid Tishkov was invited to be the curator of this exhibition. And, of course, he
brought with him his Private Moon. In Tengri Umai Gallery was held a personal exhibition of Leonid Tishkov where the new photos has been shown. They were made in the Tien Shan Mountains, in the old Soviet Observatory, under solar telescopes. The artist With his Moon raised in the mountains for the very clouds, above the Big Almaty Lake, where the great adventures was waiting for him: heavy rain gave way to snow, the car broke down on the serpentine road, but with the moon travelers found refuge in the tent of Kazakh nomad, where they were treated to fragrant and delicious tea. All this was caught just in three photos. But the fate and the path of the moon dervish are seen in them.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov & Dmitry Stupin

A crescent Russian moon has fallen in Milan. For those who want to visit it, it is holed up in the bottom of a short underground tunnel in the Galleria Nina Lumer, via Botta 8. It is the crescent moon by Leonid Tishkov, Russian artist, painter, designer and video artist, and the star in Private Moon, a series recently opened in Milan and on display until January 31st. Private Moon is a "visual poem" where a man finds the moon and lives with it his whole life, in the most unusual places: when the moon seems to fall from the sky on a roof covered with snow, then it's photographed again on the balcony of one of those monotonous buildings in the suburbs, a third time it rests beside its master in a room in Moscow.

DI MARGHERITA BELGIOJOSO for VOUGE Italy.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov

Leonid Tishkov wrote a story "The Boy and the moon" once. The fairy-tale was published in Russia, then in Japan. When the artist and the moon were in the city of Lviv (Ukraine), he met the boy, who was looked like the hero of this book very much. All this happened on the balcony of the old courtyard of the old city in Lviv. The moon came down from the sky and its light knocked on the window of the room where the boy lived. His name was Lubomir. He opened the door carefully and stepped out onto the balcony, where he acquainted with the moon.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov

A large personal exhibition by Leonid Tishkov "Look Homeward" opened in Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Art in winter 2015. In the main hall of the museum the Private Moon is located on the authentic wooden boat from the small town of Nizhniye Sergi, where the artist spent his childhood. A week before the opening of the exhibition Leonid Tishkov brought the Moon in Nizhnie Sergi and started journey of the Private Moon in the Urals. This fabulous winter series of photographs inspired by the myths of ancient mountains is just the first part of the journey that will last all 2015 year.

Photographs by Leonid Tishkov

In the summer of 2015 Leonid Tishkov and his Private Moon made a trip to Romania at the invitation of non-profit foundation Seneca (Bucharest) with the support of Greenpeace and local environmental organizations. It was the way through the Southern Carpathians, Wallachia and Transylvania. The main purpose of travel was to shed light on environmental problems in these regions, to highlight the destruction of the rare forests of Romania, industrial air, soil and water pollution. Private Moon and his companion, the artist Leonid Tishkov, combine art and social responsibility this time to fight for the preservation of life on Earth.

It was hot summer of 2016 when the Private Moon come from Bucharest to Spis region and old town Levoca. From old yards to great Spis castle, from old stony square to wooden village of the poet on the top of hill the Private Moon realized a strange journey in Slovakia.