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Abstract: The creative activity of the contemporary graphic artist Leonid Tishkov can be summarized as an integral project that includes many components: drawings, installations, art objects, videos, photographs, handwritten albums, and books. From a variety of visual material, Tishkov constructs his autobiographical myth, his own universe. The aim of this article is to determine the significance of the book and its metaphorical image in Tishkovʼs art project. The theoretical foundations for achieving the goal include interpretations of the artistic method by critics and the authored self-positioning of the artist, the biographical approach to the study of his creative activity, some techniques of the mythopoetics and investigation related to the phenomenon of the “artist’s book”. Tishkovʼs creative method has common features with modernism, post-conceptualism, and trans-avant-garde. At the same time, the artist insists on his “amateurism” and “naivete”. His art objects involve ordinary everyday objects or are created from non-art material, making a transition from everyday life into a game, from everyday life into aesthetic reality. Separate fantastic creatures (stomaks, dabloids, divers) act as signs, from which new “texts”-myths are formed at the expositions. Visual projects, such as “Private Moon” are often accompanied by short texts that gravitate towards prose poetry. The article argues that Tishkov’s visual art project has a narrative nature, which brings it close to the principles of literature. The autobiographical myth built by the artist was most saliently employed in the books (“How to Become a Brilliant Artist without a Drop of Talent”, “The Boy and the Moon”, “Look at Your House”). With a more traditional printing format, these works remain “artist’s books”. Illustrations play a huge role in them. However, Tishkov does not transfer the techniques of fine art into the verbal text; on the contrary, he models his visual projects according to the laws of literature. The book is one of the fundamental mythologemes in his art, merging with the motifs of the bird and the flight, and of freedom from everyday life.

About the author(s) :

Nina V. Barkovskaya

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9131-5937

 

Acknowledgments: Research is accomplished with financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, Grant No. 19-18-00205.

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 17.03.2023; date of publication: 30.06.2023

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