In 2056 together with the celebration of 100 years of Milko Pavlov an attempt for the reconstruction of milkopavlovthebigpictures 2012-2030 from November 2005 at the Sofia Art Gallery in Sofia City, Bulgaria. The first real time discrepancy dates from the autumn of 2004. Images from 2019 and 2026 appeared as early as December and in January 2005, pictures from 2012 appeared and then followed more, dated 2016 and 2029. Thus, Resentimenti and Navigare appeared. In addition to them, parts of the Anamnesia cycle from 2003 are shown.

As amazing it may sound, this is an attempt to pull one event, announced in advance, into the present. The painter poses questions about the present-future relation, which in the physical world are hard to break through, but on the other hand, we have the liberty to manipulate them in the world of ideas. The ‘present-future discrepancy’ method is widely popular in science fiction which impressed the author in his childhood, and what is more-contemporary physics cannot provide solutions for the time factor. One part of human thinking is not at all an attempt to construct the indescribable and the unreachable – an engine for the development of homo sapiens, as opposed to homo shopping. Causing future events is a willing or unwilling human strategy and the author realizes the relativity of such undertaking in the present exhibition.

The art technique of frottage became popular in the 30s of the 20th century - at school, almost all of us had fun scribbling with a pencil on the school-desk and thus, copying the traces left by our schoolmates. On a large scale, the same technique creates completely different results.

The first graphite frottage exhibition called “The Paradise Borders” was in 1998 at the XXL Gallery in Sofia, followed by the ‘Imitations’ exhibition at the АТА Center of Contemporary Art in 2000 and “Anamnesia” at the OMZ Gellary in Düsseldorf in 2003.

The present exhibition is the fourth one into this direction. 10 large-scale graphite on paper pictures are exhibited. They play with scenes from a black &white movie that is not produced as the painter purposely uses the big screen format. The viewer can only wonder which the movie is. The one that starts from the edge of the paper sheet or the one of everyday life. The sheets can be regarded as pieces from the future shown today. This is confirmed by the pictures with dates existing only in theory.

Do not think that this is just a joke. A contract, stipulating that such exhibition will happen in the year of 2056 is undergoing elaboration, for which purpose the pictures will be left at the Sofia Art Gallery.

LYUBEN GENOV. ACOUSTICALLY

17 November 2005 - 11 December 2005

For the past few years, Lyuben Genov has influenced the Bulgarian artistic space with his audacious abstract compositions, preference for complicated hues of color and large-scale canvasses letting him to completely spread out his ideas.

His works featured in the present exhibition have been created especially for it. They are a new stage in his development as a creator- deeper and insightful, drenched with multilayer experiences and emotions.

Lyuben Genov was on 18 November 1966, in the town of Oryahovo.He graduated from the School of Arts in the town of Troyan and in 1991- from the ’Saint Ivan Rilski’ Institute of Pedagogy in the town of Dupnitza, where he studies painting under Ivaylo Popov. In 1993 he became one of the first students of the 'Julius Pascin’ private academy in Sofia, major Painting in the class of Dolores Dilova and Nikolay Maistorov, and in 1996 completes the Master class of the academy. He has been a member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists since 2001, Department of Painting.
He has been actively interested in painting since the beginning of the 90’s, has been carrying out numerous solo exhibitions and participating in joint and national exhibitions, biennales and triennials of painting and in curators’ projects.
He received an award from the National Painting Contest, whose theme was ‘The Bulgarian Spiritual and Material Culture- Our Identity to Europe’, in 2001. In 2002 won the contest by the Union of Bulgarian Artists for his stay and work at Cite Des Arts in Paris.
His works are owned by private collectors in Bulgaria and abroad – The USA, England, France, Hungary and more.

ASEN VASSILIEV 105 years from his birth painting, drawings, documents

10 November 2005 - 16 December 2005

Asen Vassilliev was born on 2 June 1900, in the town of Kustendil. In 1925, he graduated painting from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia under the Professors: Dimitar Gyudjenov, Nikola Ganushev, Stefan Ivanov and Nikola Marinov. 1926 – 1940: works as a secondary school teacher in Berkovitza, Shumen and Sofia. 1957 – 1959: an assistant-director of the Institute of Art History at the BAS /Bulgarian Academy of Science/. Since 1974 –Professor at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia; member of the ‘Union of Contemporary Art’ and one of the founders of the Union of Bulgarian Artists in Bulgaria.

As an artist, Asen Vassilliev works in the field of compositions with everyday objects and historic compositions, portrait, landscape and still-life. His works can be seen in all museums in Bulgaria and in collections in Germany, France, Romania, Serbia amd Monte Negro, and more. As an art-historian, he works predominantly in the field of Bulgarian Revival. He also takes part in numerous complex scientific expeditions of the BAS. He cooperates in magazines dedicated to art and archaeology. He is the author of 34 monographs and books and of large number of articles.

The exhibition features painting, graphics and drawings, owned by the Sofia Art Gallery, The National Art Gallery, the ‘Vladimir Dimitrov-Maistora’ Art Gallery in the town of Kustendil, Art Gallery in the town of Stara Zagora, private collections and documents of the Central State Archive and the ‘Ivan Duichev’ center of Slavic- Byzantine research.

The objective of the present exhibition is to call to remembrance of the work of the eminent artist and art-historian Asen Vassilliev, who left a deep trace in Bulgarian culture.

MEETING POINT Assia Kovanova and Kamen Tanev. Genesis

09 November 2005 - 30 November 2005

Shape formation is the basic matter in Kamen Tanev’s creative work. The process of its differentiation in space follows its own inner logic. The latest trend in the sculptor’s artistic groping comes one step closer to the liberation of the shape from its creator’s will. As a perfect container, the sphere reincarnates the idea best. The spherical elements initially popped out in the author’s consciousness when he looked at tennis balls closed in vacuum. They evoke the impression of something organic, of a unique life form. Kamen has begun to explore these shapes in different types of space and in varying scales. In the present exhibition, the author is aiming at the maximum closeness with nature serving as the most suitable context for perception of its organic creatures. The metamorphoses they go through have been ‘shot’ by Assia Kovanova. The video allows the tracing of the shape-creation process forming a significant and inseparable part of the life of completed shapes in the exposition. The stages of their self-identification suggest that this phase may not be the last one.

Yana Kostova
curator of the exhibition

LIUBEN DIMANOV painting, prints, drawings

02 November 2005 - 23 November 2005

Liuben Dimanov was born in 1933 in the town Knezha. In 1959 he graduated in ‘Decorative Monumental Arts’ from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, under Professor Bogdanov. The painter has become permanently interested in graphic art, illustration and drawing. In the same time he has been working in the field of painting and mural-monumental art. He has been an active participant in international life since the time of his graduation – he took part in the Youth Biennale in Paris in 1961, 1963, 1965, and in the graphic art biennales in Ljubljana, London, Rome, Australia, Moscow, Sao Paulo.

He organized his first one-man show in 1972 in Knezha. It was followed by exhibitions in Sofia, Stockholm, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Lyons, Oslo, Luxemburg, Copenhagen, Vienna and many more. Liuben Dimanov is the author of numerous illustrations and graphic folios for editions by Bulgarian and world authors. Some of the books he has worked on are: Mark Aurelius ‘Pensee pour moi-meme’ – 1978, Paris; Baudelaire ‘Flowers of Evil’ -1979, Dusseldorf; Selma Lagerloeuf ‘The saga of Joster Berliner’-1980 Galleriet Oster, Sweden, Ovidius ‘Metamorphoses’ -1981, Paris, Apoliner ‘Alcohols’ -1981, Shakespeare ‘Sonnets’ – 1983, Stockholm, ‘Le Bestiaire’ –1984, Paris, ‘When the flame and the rose are one’– 1986, London, Mallarmee ‘Mytologie’ -1991, Paris and more.

He has received numerous awards in the filed of graphic art and drawing, as well as awards for his book illustrations both in Bulgaria and abroad. In 1974 he won Second Prize for illustration at the International Book Exhibition in Moscow. In 1986 he received the Painting Prize of the International Contemporary Art Center in Paris.
The painter, who went to live in Paris in 1976, is a guest of the Sofia Art Gallery with a large retrospective exhibition. This is his fifth representative exposition in the capital – after the exhibitions at the National Academy of Arts in 1980 and 1983, in the gallery in 125 Rakovski Street in 1989, and in the National Gallery for Foreign At in 1995.

The present exhibition includes paintings, drawing, collages and graphics in which the techniques of etching, lithography and monotype can be observed. The works exhibited trace different stages in the creative life of Liuben Dimanov. Works from the painter’s early period are featured in the exposition –the time when he worked in Bulgaria (60s to mid 70s of the 20th century) and works created after 1976. They are united by the power of the monumental, synthetically simplified drawing and the dynamics of the color spot. The basic means of expression used is the line. We can observe it in its various types- from the plastic creation of the shape, through the skillful outlining of the drapery to the symbolic associations provoked by the detail.