Teodor Tezhik
1946, Elektrostal and Prague
A multidisciplinary artist in the truest sense, Teodor Tezhik’s international reputation extends to film design and civic monuments, as well as painting. On his father’s side, his ancestors were from Bohemia, today’s Czech Republic, where Tezhik himself now lives and works.
He graduated from the Moscow Central Art School, and in 1970 from the Moscow Surikov Art Institute in the workshop of Professor V. F. Ryndin, a constructivist theatre artist whose work combined conventional and symbolic design of a particular emotional intensity.
His own work as a production designer for films is legendary. The cult Russian film “Kin-dza-dza!” (1986) won its sole award at the Sao Paolo Film Festival for Tezhik’s ‘steampunk’ visual design.
Tezhik’s works appear in private collections throughout Europe – in Vienna, London, Paris and Frankfurt, as well as in Prague. His grand civic statements have included “Pegasus”, “Monument to the Everyman” and “Monument to Time Lost Washing Dishes” as well as ‘Green’ (Paris 2005) and ‘Monument to Tortured Metal’ (Nizhny Tagil).
Tezhik’s solo exhibitions have been staged at Berlin’s East-side gallery (1991), Frankfurt’s Gallery Amade (1992) and Moscow’s Central House of Artists (1993, ‘Bad Infinity’)