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A project by Iskra Blagoeva
Exhibitions 2022
Kalin Serapionov I About The Walls Next To Me 01.12-29.12.2022 г. I Opening: 01.12.2022, 18:00 "About The Walls Next To Me" is a video installation with performative realization, made up of footage of multiple strangers temporarily inhabiting a specific space. In addition to their bodies, some are present there with a beloved item brought from their own home. Within an hour or so, they communicate with each other, not in words, but silently. At the heart of the project is the method of family constellations. Our individual behavior, feelings and attitudes are considered and made sense of in the context of the larger group, as each person is part of a family and assumes certain roles within that structure. The space is Etage 8 - on the eighth floor of an industrial building on the outskirts of Sofia. The specificity of the particular architecture (a glazed space on the top floor), makes it something of a separate capsule in the overall urban environment. Sitting in it, one has a view from a distance in all directions. One can observe the residential districts, the industrial zones, the mountains, analyse the dynamics of the city. The aim is to inhabit this space with the presence of people, without speaking, under the sounds of their own bodies and the silence. Yorgos Lanthimos' film “The Lobster” takes us to a dystopian environment where people without an intimate partner are forcibly sent to a special hotel where they have 45 days to find one (partner), and if they fail, they are turned into the animal of their choice. Under the pressure of this danger, the characters make every effort to fit into the framework of acceptable social behavior, using their entire arsenal of knowledge of what that would be, and, ultimately, failing. The narrative problematizes the conventions of human relationships, the vulnerability of the individual in a group, and change. In his project, like Lanthimos, Kalin Serapionov builds a sterile environment for social communication, setting ground rules - no words, and a single goal - communication. In the process of adapting to the unusual environment, primal human instincts and forms of exchange, usually suppressed in everyday life by our drive for productivity, come to light. Participants, seemingly constrained by the prohibition of verbal communication, seem rather liberated from it - they indulge in introverted pursuits - play, contemplation, sleep. Beyond the risk of being turned into a lobster or a pony (or suffering any lasting negative consequences), the individual is given the opportunity to consume time, space, his or her body even, exclusively in relation to his or her personal desires. As time progresses, participants also proceed to social activities, but these are again delicate, non-invasive. Speechless, participants turn (anew) to the body as the primary medium of expression. We observe how, in some cases upgraded by the immutable prostheses of technology, it participates in new rituals of constructing proximity - those of contemporary cyborgs. At times, the body is self-sufficient; it seeks out surfaces, tissues, and at other times, other bodies. In line with the rupture of capitalist ideology, the participants' behaviour is perhaps symptomatic of modern man's need for stillness and a rethinking of our ideal of a fulfilling life. Credits: DoP Tillman Roediger Operator steadicam Borislav Belberov First Assistant Eva Petrunova Assistant steadicam Vanya Ivanova Gaffer - Dimitar Yordanov Editing Kalin Serapionov Sound Georgi Atanasov Video equipment, installation and sound Dimitar Apostolov, Kiril Yanev, Studio Balkanji Special thanks to Elena Antonova, Georgi Nikolov, Magic Shop, Orlin Ruevski, Momchil Tashev. With the support of the National Fund "Culture" under the program "One-year Grand 2021" and "Program for the restoration and development of private cultural organizations".
Recently Ahead Milko Pavlov 18/10 - 22/11/2022 Milko Pavlov’s painting seems to have been formed in a time prior to language, prior even to the beginning of human history, when earth and sky had not undergone disseverance from each other—a separation that would allow the creation of the world, but also open up an infinite chasm between them and the impossibility of achieving wholeness. The landscapes of his brushstrokes create a space that we may classify as a world, but not as reality. Reality is full of concepts; it is defined through language, it is structured, analysed, a product of the ego and its comprehension; reality is human experience and culture, the secondary and already hardened body, aware of its nakedness and thus of its mortality, having constructed axes and transversal lines along which to walk on tiptoe and orient itself. The world is liquid and pure matter, the fabric of the absolute. Reality is a function of humanness, the world—the fruit of the Divine Logos. In a series of large-format canvases, the artist designs places that may be reminiscent of mountain landscapes, rocky shores, a cosmos. Formed through the intuitive use of colours (intuitive, because intuition is a product of the subconscious, and colourists—as Milko Pavlov describes himself—generally rely more on their own sense than on the rationalisation expressed by the line, let us say), the paintings seem to appear through manifesting the integral memory of the celestial/the world of ideas embedded in our collective memory. Milko Pavlov’s painting seems to resolve the task of language, constantly suffering failure in its attempt to express the absolute, to reach a veracious knowledge. In the ‘Recently Ahead’ exhibition, Milko Pavlov situates his painting in another time yet to be reached. The works are ‘dated’ in years that, for us, have not occurred: 2109, 2099, etc. (according to the conventional reading of time—linear, Christian, 2022). Thus, in the artist’s abstract landscapes, time is disempowered, as in the Garden of Eden, where Man does not cognise its tireless action, where being is still whole. In this respect, his painting invariably remains somewhat elusive—it is here, it is present, but it alludes to somewhere else, reminding us of that place to which we want to return. In the white cube of the gallery space, itself a kind of temple, which should tear visitors away from the world of the vitally necessary and practically useful, Milko Pavlov’s exhibition transcends the reality of the matter encasing us. His oil paintings on canvas are a bridge to the world of the invisible—their medium a conduit to the unspoken. With the support of the National Fund "Culture" under the program "One-year Grant 2021" and "Program for the restoration and development of private cultural organizations". text: Boyana Dzhikova translated from Bulgarian by: Nigrita Davis
That moment when the coyote falls off a cliff Solo exhibition by Vikenti Komitski 17/09 - 15/10/2022 Opening: 17.09, 18:00 Coyote Time refers to that moment in cartoons when the hero runs over the edge of a cliff, but only begins to fall when they realize they are in mid-air. Vikenti Komitski's "That Moment When the Coyote Falls Off a Cliff" takes us to a landscape at the end of time in which nature and artifacts of industry undergo continual metamorphosis. The series of sculptures and assemblages is constructed from natural elements, found materials and scrap. The exhibition draws several main axes of conflict - nature, culture and anti-nature, primary and derived, organic and man-made. At stake in the latter is our own extinction, but also the panic at the loss of our primordial gift of containing meaning. At the heart of the narrative is the desire of humans to transcend and subjugate nature, to take over its, hers, demiurgic functions and replace her as God (a dead one, that is) for good. In this quest for infinite growth, everything unnecessary and no longer useful is being discarded. Forced out of her habitat, nature has become a spirit. She is a soul, floating around, looking for a body to settle in, finding it in the metal constructions, the remains of the mechanics. These in turn, having spent centuries trying to imitate her, sooner or later become her, or at least versions of her. It is in the stage of their destruction these objects, that we conventionally perceive as relatively ephemeral, come to resemble organic matter, whose fundamental characteristic is impermanence - a linear movement of being-towards-death. The visual language of the works is an amalgam of two architectural fields: that of nature and that of the human vision of functionality (which often uses natural structures as models for its own), merging into one tissue, system of organs. The objects of nature - bones, horns, relics of the moment in which they served life - find themselves, on a plane with the debris of machines and objects for the construction of everyday life. Vikenti Komitski's works form a new enclosed garden, where nothing is alive. However, inanimate matter does not enter the stage of decomposition and decay (because what was never alive cannot die). On the contrary, it undergoes rampant transformations towards its own renewal, becoming other, almost as if it were defeating the original terrible fate of the creation, abandoned to the forces of the hostile environment. The garden has no need of soil, its organisms have their own synthetic roots and arteries. Under the sun of the new time, its inhabitants neurotically reflect its light, pupils narrowing painfully, reminding us that something is wrong, that this sun is other. This garden of nature and industry is one from which man will not be expelled, but is also doomed to live in.
TRAINS OF THOTH by Da Zain 25/08 - 10/09/2022 Trains of Thoth is an exhibition project combining two transmedia installations that explore the phenomenology and mythology of moving image technologies. They share a format specifically designed to juxtapose motion activated lenticular print animations with fixed viewer position video screenings. The format questions the relationship between embodiment and technology by inviting the viewer to experience the contrast between the physical arrest of single channel film/video screenings and the motion activated moving image of the lenticular/holographic medium. In the tradition of McLuhan's view of media formats as semantic conduits, Trains of Thoth activates the meanings embedded in specific media frameworks foregrounding ways media, in turn, enframe cognitive experience.
Transatlantic Art Discourse Group exhibition by: Brett Eberhardt Anthony Fisher Bryan McFarlane Elena Peteva Suzanne Schireson Svilen Stefanov 01.07 - 30.07.2022 Transatlantic Art Discourse July 1 – July 30, 2022 Brett Eberhardt Anthony Fisher Bryan McFarlane Elena Peteva Suzanne Schireson Svilen Stefanov This American-Bulgarian exhibition presents six artists, each one with a distinct vision and voice, in a discourse on the experience and reflection on the moment of “now”. A rich multiplicity of visual languages – representation, abstraction, metaphor and invention – come together in the exhibition of paintings and drawings. Contemporary individual, social and global states take diverse forms through each artist’s personal lens and invite the viewer to engage in a cross-cultural conversation about “now”. This exhibition exchange project is years in the making. The first part was the exhibition of four contemporary Bulgarian artists at the Laconia Gallery in Boston, in 2017. In this second exhibition, ONE+ Gallery creates the forum for a creative discourse with four artists from the United States and the two curators. Elena Peteva, Associate Professor of Art and Design, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Svilen Stefanov, Professor and Vice-Rector, National Academy of Art Sofia
NEVER ROBERTA Tekla Alexieva and Iskra Blagoeva Curator: dr Lyuben Domozetsky 01.06 - 25.06.2022 г. The exhibition NEVER ROBERTA presents two female artists - Tekla Alexieva and Iskra Blagoeva. Each of them belongs to a different generation, the age difference between the two is not small, they are known to a different type of audience, they have worked in a different socio-cultural context. Tekla Alexieva is primarily known for her illustrations for the covers of the Galaktika series of science fiction literature. Iskra Blagoeva is particularly popular among younger audiences and is an artist with a strong presence in Bulgarian contemporary art. The meeting between the painting of the two is a meeting of two different generations, of two eras. But it is not a chance meeting. A web of invisible threads connects the work of the two artists, bringing their artistic language closer. At first glance, what unites them both is their attitude to reality and the recreation of this reality in their works. An eye-catching realism is clearly present in the painting of both. It has different dimensions. Sometimes it is just a matter of volumetric and plastic construction. Other times it is about unexpected elements of everyday life and the world around us, carefully selected, composed and recreated with great attention to detail. Combining the paintings of both artists in one exhibition allows for interesting comparisons, revealing common directions. It is in the juxtaposition that Iskra's art stands out so classically and Tekla's sounds so contemporary. Themes and images that have excited both of them emerge: the self-portrait, the femme fatale, the cat, everyday life... The exhibition includes works created on different occasions, works with a separate story behind each one. Some of the works are completely unknown, others have participated in numerous exhibitions. One painting, namely "Judith", Iskra Blagoeva painted especially for the present project. This work brings together the best of the artist's style, outlining the broad perimeter of themes that interest her - ideas of self-image, biblical references, violence, domination, roles in society and interiors in the style of New Objecthood. This "New Objectness" appears clearly in Tekla Alexieva's work. The work "Reis" (1989) was created at the time of transition during the change of two socio-political systems, marking changes occurring in life and, looked at today, some 30 years after its creation, this work continues to excite with the contemporary sound of its artistic language, reminding us that everything new is an old well forgotten. The styles of both artists, each with a distinct individuality, flow in the exhibition from photorealism in the representation of everyday life gathered in a backseat in Tekla's work, to a transcendence in the cold carnation of the figures in Iskra's. I believe the juxtaposition of artists from different generations and their presentation in a joint exhibition provides a direction for interesting reflections. The current project is a reminder that the pendulum of the quest to recreate reality swings evenly, measuring transitions and generations. Dr. Luben Domozetsky, Curator