Private Moon Project By Leonid Tishkov And Boris Bendikov

Boris Bendikov is a perfect collaborator for Leonid on Private Moon, expert in the art of fantasy creation; Bendikov operates as a fashion photographer and an art photographer in his own right. The images are made on large format camera and Tishkov insists on no Photoshop trickery. The fantastic lunar tableau is represented with the meticulous veracity of high modernist documentary photographic method.
Curator Marcus Williams met Leonid Tishkov in his Moscow studio in 2005 and again in 2007. In 2009 he included a suite of silk-screen prints from Leonid’s best known allegorical narrative; ‘The Dabloids’ into his survey exhibition of contemporary Russian art at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
The concept of a “private moon” and the eerie light of the photographic images were immediately compelling to me and they continue to evoke a longing inside of me which is born of actual experience in my life as well as the sensate memory of the great stories of my childhood., read to me by my father. We all are bathed under the moons light and she affects us all and all things around us. Yet our contemplation, our longing and questing, ultimately leaves us alone; alone with our private moon.