leonya tsoyartist

PROSTRANSTVO IMINIMINYA (the space of my own name)

“PROSTRNSTVO IMINIMINYA” was an interactive open installation, where everyone could take part curated by roman alexandrov and maria ivanova. in fact it soon gathered a community of young artists and students who soon made a true labyrinth inside a former kindergarten doomed to be destroyed in several months during the construction works.always paranoid about the fire inspection and suffering from unexpected attention of the police the place however worked through 2004-2005 and attracted multiple visitors, who were always surprised to find themselves in a labyrinth grown in a usual house.leonya tsoy was among the most active constructors of the installation and soon became a part of organizers’ team. this project helped me to develop my artist’s identity and also pushed me to get practical psychology education.unfortunately it lived no trace except in my degree work in saint petersburg state university.

LEARN CHINESE WITH MUTANT WOMEN: THE VAGABOND EDITION

learn chinese with mutant women was a biopunk sci-fi graphic novel translated to chinese and printed on t-shirts. it was then given away to city celebrities as well as to homeless people and documented. the project took place in 2009. the artist thanks ksenia kopylova and manas sirakanian for their help and support in making the project and zoya belova and vera aksyonova who helped to contact the homeless people.

perspectivy art studiothe art studio of the charity social organization “perspektivy” is my official working place. i am proud to be a part of this collective since march 2015 when I joined it as a psychologist.

this is an art workshop for the people with special needs in the psychoneurological boarding, where more than 40 artists (in rotation) can work all through the working week. the staff provides help in the working process from fixing pencils and assisting in daily living needs to setting the exhibitions in the city galleries and writing theoretical texts.

from time to time we can also be helpful in human rights defense which sadly is still needed in the boarding.

http://perspektivy.ru/eng/

manifesta-10:art for cats

the “art for cats” was an exhibition of the of the perspektivy art studio artists in the manifesta 10 biennal of contemporary art (summer-autumn 2014).

video-art, objects and live performance with real cats from “happy cat” asylum (it was a bureaucratic disaster to brake into the state hermitage museum with a crowd of cats) were presented along with the graphics and paintings.

leonya tsoy and natalia petukhova were the curators of this exhibition.

http://m10.manifesta.org/en/education/community-program/natalia-petuhova/

thanx to alexander ivanov and elena tsarevskaya (leskova) for making this project possible.

photos by alexander Ivanov from the opening of “art for cats” (13 september 2014, general staff building of the state hermitage museum)

tracings out of thin air

tracings out of thin air is a long-term research program addressing the complex conditions of norm, ability and dependency in art. the project builds on the history of the art studio of the charity ‘perspektivy‘.

international practitioners in the field of mediation, critical pedagogy and socially-engaged art are collaborating closely with the Art Studio's self-taught artists through a series of activities, which can take the form of discussions, residencies, publications, interventions, and exhibitions to reflect upon the discourse of disability in culture, and emphasize the critical role of art in troubling the issue of ableism.

chief curators are jona monbaron (switzerland) and alexander ivanov (russia). leonya tsoy and natalia petukhova are in the organizers team.

http://tracingsoutofthinair.wixsite.com/about

the definition of freedom. performance. 15 november 2013, summer bar, saint petersburg the artist’s text said: “what is freedom? Give a definition of this concept. Leave it on my body with a tattoo-gun. If you can not use a tattoo-gun ask for the help of the master. I ask you not to leave traces on my face, neck, wrists and hands”after about three hours of performing 13 people could leave their definitions of freedom on the artist’s body. photos by dmitry pryakhin and galy atullin.the artist thanks natalia petukhova, masha ivasenko, slucya, alexander belov, denis shumilov, alyona strakhova and ramil zakirov who helped in the organization of this event and made it possible.

Nature mortenature morte. performance. 20 june 2015. the performance started with a confession of killing three kittens at the age of 14, and for the next 3 hours the artist was talking to a dead kitten holding a gag in his mouth. the performance finished with setting a fire to sending a paper boat with kitten’s body and letting it into a neva river. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHhKupVvjVY photos by maxim evstropov.

the second attempt was made during the nordwind festival in hamburg, germany (kampknagel creative cluster, 5 december 2015 – my father’s birthday).during this performances the artist’s name was put in blood into the story of art by the artist’s own hand. he used his own blood and an enlish edition of gombrich’s “story of art” for that. this hamburg performance lasted for 24 hours.

as both attemts to sell the soul during the great Christmas sale (-50%) failed the object is now in the artists possession and came back to its full price.

thanks to the q-rators collective for making the tour possible and personally anna ten, susie kahlich, natalia tseluba, alexander golod, anna laute

video from kampknagel (hamburg): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu7v9Rp0maM

photos by vadim f. lurye, xenia lotus

les grandes soldes des ames! -50%!/ seelen!!! großer weihnachtsverkauf! -50%!paris-hamburg performance tour, nov-dec 2015.in the two performances the artist have tried to sell his soul incorporated in an object of bread, blood and sugar made during the performances for 500 euros.the first attempt was made in paris in the pierre-feuille-ciseaux festival of performance art (le generateur, paris, france,26 novemer 2015).

NE MIR

a movable anti-war street exhibition {NE MIR} dates back to the 27 december 2015, saint petersburg.it was encouraged by katrin nenasheva and {rodina} art group who made an open call for a street exhibition of contemporary in a form of anti-war political meeting and tried to get an official permission from the city authorities and failed for three times.at least the artists went in the streets without an official permission and made a march through significant points on the city map, starting with a museum of artillery and finishing in a small underground gallery “tayna” (the secret). on the previous day a famous russian anti-war activist vlad kolesnikov commited suicide being cruelly bullied in his home little town. many artists carried his portraits along with their artworks. leonid tsoy was an author of the exhibition’s title, making most of the visual design, technical work of the making the exhibition portable stands, developing a route and negotiating with the gallery and city authorities. also he presented his graphic work in blood and petroleum “the red square”.the artists were called in the press the new wanderers or the new itinerants after a famous russian collective of the realist artists of late XIX-early XX century (“peredvizhniki”).later the idea of the movable exhibition changed and now the members call it “the movable activist laboratory”, but I no longer am a part of this collective. the video from the first exhibition in saint petersburg:http://www.svoboda.org/a/27451866.html

danish performance tour, march 2016

the punishment. performance. piscine gallery, aarhus. 12-13 march 2016the artist had been reading “crime and punishment” by fyodor dostoyevsky for 24 hours, backwards for the first 12 hours, then in proper order. the performance started with burning the very book. at the the breaking point after 12 hours the artist covered the mask on his face with his own blood. In the artist’s explication the text of dosoyevsky’s novel is compared to the text of the law, and he sets a parallel between pervert reading of “crime and punishment” and perverted ugly laws which passed both in russia and in denmark just before the performance. on the very day of the performance, as he later learned some group of people in russia set a fire of henry miller’s books. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-WQSBwdwAQ&t=112s photo by kirstine skov hansen

the art asylum. copenhagen, different locations. wearing the same mask from “the punishment” performance the artist paid a visit to an asylum center near copenhagen and tell the asylim seekers from different countries about his idea of the street intervention. some of them said the idea is not a bad one, the others keep silent but no one said it was bad. so the next two days the artist makes a tour throughout the city’s famous sights finishing the tour near the closed faurschou foundation gallery from which ai weiwei withdrew his art protesting the violent laws against the asylum seekers.during the tour the polaroid portraits of the artist posing on one foot as andersen’s “steadfast tin soldier” are made. those polaroids were later sent to the ministry of immigration, integration and housing accompanied with a letter where the destiny of a refugee is compared to a destiny of andersen’s tin soldier. the letter is addressed to inger stojberg, the minister, but returns to the artist seeming untouched.the artist thanks kirstine skov hansen for her help during the performances and making the tour possible. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcGwwtzbheE photos by kirstine skov hansen

karianne stensland’s “great emotion”. performance. september 2016, “palma” creative space, saint petersburg. within the ARTPROSPECT-2016 public art festival karianne stansland (norway) invited me to join her in the performance where she was planning to make a marble sculpture – as a psychotherapist. that was a very important and interesting experience where my two identities – of a performance artist and psychologist came to a conflict and i surprisingly felt really psychedelic. i heartfully thank karianne for the invitation and want more. in fact i think it was the first time in history when psychotherapist of gestalt school was involved into the very body of a performance in a professional role. photos by ivan karpov

{rodina} (the motherland)

art group

the art group started in 2013 is dealing with the current political and mass-media context and transforms the authority’s discourse into a weird absurd performances.leonya joined the group in their second performance and took part in most of the group’s performances, happenings ant street interventions.the video with the extracts of the group’s activities 2013-2014 with english subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnnflkRgr74&index=16&list=PLpwp9I0I84bIw74oxHiLdnOYfHAGVa9lz photos from the happening: “how to love the motherland: a master-class” (21 february 2015, concert hall of vladimir mayakovsky library, saint petersburg) by dmitry pryakhin

‘bobo’ art group

the art group practicing intim-art (the opposite of public art) mostly in their very home and sometimes at friend’s houses also started to exist in 2015.though their activity is not supposed to be wide-known sometimes their home events attract hundreds of visitors (as it happened during the “biennal of rejaction” in spring 2015)the two members of the group – natalia petukhova and leonid tsoy work together in perspektivy art studio. also these two collaborated in the performance “the definition of freedom” (see the previous slides) in 2013 where natalia was a technical advisor in tattoo-makingfor the details see http://www.slideshare.net/leonidczoy/bobo-art-group photo by elena lukyanova