Galerie Blue Square : galerie d'art russe contemporaine - contemporary russian art gallery - Paris

Leonid Borisov was born in 1943 in Leningrad and graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute of Communications in 1968. In 1975 the artist took part in his first exhibition at the Nevsky Palace of Culture, which was one of the first official exhibitions of non-conformist artists in Leningrad and marked a major milestone in the city's independent culture. A wide variety of artistic movements-- from abstractionism to pop art-- were displayed before the public, which resulted in a major growth of public interest in contemporary art. Evidently, the socio-political environment during this era was conducive to Borisov's creative work.

Borisov is well-recognized in Moscow, where his geometric, minimalist style fits more closely within the city's artistic traditions. As stated by Alexander Borovsky, Curator of Contemporary Art at the State Russian Museum, "Borisov is devoted to geometry. Passionately, if not fanatically. It is in Moscow that the geometrical tradition has been flourishing for the last decades." The artist is an icon of minimalist, geometric non-conformist works.

2008
Photographies, Galerie Blue Square, Paris

2007
Games, Gallery Atelier No.2, Moscow

I live - I see, Tumenskiy Regional Museum

2006
People of Malevich, Gallery Borei, St. Petersburg

2005
Concrete Art, Gallery Kino, Moscow

Italy, Switzerland, Photos, Gallery Kino-Fot, St. Petersburg

Leonid Borisov. Paintings, Objects, Sculptures, Central House of Artists, Moscow

2001
Black Nights, Gallery Tochka, St. Petersburg

Dada De-formalized, Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow

1999
Dedicated to Malevich, Center of Modern Art, St. Petersburg

1998
Geometry Lessons, Ros-lzo Gallery, Moscow

1995
Leonid Borisov, Works 1975/1995, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

1994
Cubism, Galereja-21, St. Petersburg

1978
Krupskaya Palace of Culture, St. Petersburg

2010
Russian Artists : an Art Superlative, Saint André Abbey Contemporary Art Center, Meymac, France

2009
Slovak National Museum, Bratislava

Étude to Art Object, Moscow museum of modern art (MMOMA), Moscow

2007
New Angelerium, Museum of Modern Art, Moscow

Adventures of the Black Square, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

New Ideas for the City, Museum of City Architecture, St. Petersburg

Architecture: Ad Marginem, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

All Petersburg, Central Exhibition Hall Manezh, St. Petersburg

2006
Twelve Letters to Rembrandt, Gallery DO, St. Petersburg

International Neoconstructivism, Museum of Modern Art, Moscow

Time of Change, Soviet Art 1960-1985, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

2005-2006
Collage in Russia, 20^th Century, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

2005
Perestroika + 20, Harriman Institute, Columbia University, New York

ARTFIELD: Outdoor Sculpture Installation, Aidan Gallery, Moscow

2004-2005
Christmas Present: Academy of Porcelain, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

2003-2004
From Leningrad to St. Petersburg: 25 Years of Art, Chelsea Art Museum, New York

1999
Contemporary Russian Photo, Minneapolis, Minnesota

1998
Acquisitions and Gifts, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

1997
Russian Constructivist Roots: Present Concerns, University of Maryland, College Parks, Maryland

1996
Nonconformists (Bar-Ger Collection), State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Stedel Art Institute, Stadtgalerie, Frankfurt, Germany

1994
Petersburg '94, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

Knigomania, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

Kruititsa-Vertitsa (The Kinetic Art), Cinema Center, Moscow

1993
Petersburg '93, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

The History of Unofficial Art of Leningrad, Museum of the History of Leningrad- St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg

Carnaval, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

From Pleistocene to Halocene, Paleontology Museum, Moscow

1992
Towards Malevich, Vienna, Austria

Modern Art from the Anna Gallery, Brugge Art Center, Brugge, Germany

Garderop, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

1991
St. Petersburg Art '91, Porvo, Finland

Contemporary Artists to Malevich, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Crazy, Sovincenter, Moscow

Big Sharp-Cornered Triangle (125^th Anniversary of Kandinsky), Kuntsevo, Moscow

Biennale, Kalinin Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

The 3^rd Exhibition of Gifts to the Soviet Culture Foundation, Soviet Culture Foundation, Moscow

Scientific and Artistic Developments, Moscow House of Artists

Keepers of the Flame, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

1989
From Official Art to Perestroika, The Gavan, St. Petersburg

The Kolodzei Collection, State Art Museum, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Cube, Helsinki

Forty Artists (the Tarasov Collection), Vilnus, Latvia

Geometry in Art, Moscow

Contemporary Art of Leningrad, Manezh Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg

Labyrinth, Moscow Palace of Youth, Moscow

Express- Vanguard, Soviet Culture Foundation, Moscow

Cube, Leningrad Artists Union

Novie Russkie, Warsaw

1984
14 Artists, Leningrad Youth Palace, St. Petersburg

1983
Leningrad Artists, Alexandria, Virginia

1981
Leningrad Artists, Tartu, Estonia

1979 - 1990
(annual exhibitions of Leningrad unofficial artists)

1977
New Art from the Soviet Union, Washington, DC; Ithaca, New York

1976
Painting, Graphics, Object, Ordzonikidze House of Culture, St. Petersburg

1975
Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture, and Graphics, Nevsky Palace of Culture, St. Petersburg

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

All-Russian Pushkin Museum, St. Petersburg

State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Russian Culture Fund, Moscow

Free Culture Fund, Moscow

Pensa Art Museum, Russia

Museum of Modern Art, Moscow

State Dresden Gallery, Germany

Dodge Collection of Soviet Nonconformist Art, Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Jersey

Russian Culture Foundation, St. Petersburg

Tatiana and Natalia Kolodzei Foundation

Bar-Ger Collection, Cologne, Germany

Collection of the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

"Leonid Borisov is not the worldly artist and not the one of the crowd, unlike many colleagues of his age, not counting the younger generation; neither is he socialized. Not for these reasons would I define his position in the St.-Petersburg's artistic life as that of an outsider. He is a well-renowned artist, having participated in virtually all the exhibitions of significance since the 70'-s. The reason is that the problematics, which he has been consistently pursuing in his artistic career for the last two decades, belong to the Moscow rather than the St.-Petersburg school. The thing is that L. Borisov is devoted to geometry. Passionately, if not fanatically. It is in Moscow that the geometrical tradition has been flourishing for the last decades." 

Alexander Borovsky, Leonid Borisov: 1975/1995, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, 1995.

Bown, Matthew Cullerne, A Dictionary of Twentieth Century Russian and Soviet 

Painters.  London: Izomar, 1998.

Dodge, Norton T., and Alison Hilton, New Art from the Soviet Union: The Known

and the Unknown.  Washington: Acropolis Books, 1977.

Holo, Selma.  Keepers of the Flame: Unofficial Artists of Leningrad.  Los

Angeles: Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, 1990.

Riese, Hans-Peter.  Nonconformists. Second Russian Avant-Garde: 1955-1988,

Bar-Ger Collection.  Cologne: Wienand, 1996.

Rosenfeld, Alla, and Norton T. Dodge, From Gulag to Glasnost: Nonconformist 

Art in the Soviet Union.  New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995.

Russian Constructivist Roots: Present Concerns.  College Park, M.D.: University

of Maryland, 1997