The exhibition includes some of Dimitar Kazakov’s so far non-displayed works from the privatecollection of Bohem Art Gallery. There will be presented works from different creative periods of the author dating from the late sixties, the seventies, eighties and nineties of the 20th century. The collection comprises graphics, pastels, water-colours, gouache works and paintings. What is of special interest and accentuates the exhibition is the black-and-white mixed graphic technique called by the author himself “neronographics” after his popular nickname.

Dimitar Kazakov was born in 1933 (he died in 1992). In 1965 he graduated in graphics from the National Art Academy under Professor Evtim Tomov. He worked on paintings, graphics, drawings, ceramics and monumental wood plastic pieces. In his works he gives a unique rendering of typical Bulgarian folklore themes and elaborates on the features of some universal personages. His preferences are directed mainly towards the genre compositions inspired by everyday life. He also shows interest in depicting the spiritual world of his characters. Throughout the years Kazakov builds up his personal decorative-linear style, which is easily recognizable notwithstanding the technique he applies.

Bohem Art Gallery was opened in 2006. Its work is directed towards the serious professional setting up of a collection of eminent Bulgarian artists’ works. For a short period the gallery has managed to form the collections of Dechko Uzunov and Atanas Yaranov. This is the first private gallery in Bulgaria which Sofia Art Gallery has been cooperating with in its desire to make the public more familiar with the famous artist Dimitar Kazakov.

Vaska Emanouilova Gallery presents: PLACES WHERE THE WORLD BREAKS AWAY: LETS GO TO GIURGIU! a project of Kamen Stoyanovs

08 November 2007 - 09 December 2007

The exhibition in Vaska Emanouilova Gallery marks the beginning of a series of exhibitions and events within the framework of the platform for presenting young authors A place to meet which started a few years ago on the initiative of Sofia Art Gallery.

After a short break starting from November 2007 the platform resumes its active existence as a continuing project and part of the policy of working with contemporary art and young artists of Sofia Art Gallery. Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, a branch of Sofia Art Gallery, hosts the platform providing exhibition space for the projects materialized within its framework.

Kamen Stoyanov’s Places where the world disintegrates: Let’s go to Giurgiu! consists of three parts:
- a performance in Sofia Art Gallery on 5th October, 2007 at 7 pm
- an exhibition and a photo collecting campaign at Canetti’s Home, Rousse ( 9th October, 2007 – 1st November, 2007 ); opening: 9th October, 2007, at 7 pm
- an exhibition within the framework of the platform for young authors A place to meet in Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, branch of Sofia Art Gallery, Sofia, opening: 8th October, 2007 (8th October, 2007 – 9th December, 2007, at 7 pm

At the beginning of 2007 the municipality of the town of Rousse organized a free trip to Gyurgevo on the occasion of Bulgaria’s accession to the European Union. Kamen Stoyanov shot the event turning it into a video film entitled Let’s go to Giurgiu! which is the core of the current project. From the position of a participant in the event, he renders the historic moment for Bulgaria from the point of view of the ordinary person. The one who crosses the border of the country for the first time having his own personal expectations and hopes. Thus the “big” political event is examined on a personal human scale. Trying to underscore this, Kamen Stoyanov organizes a campaign for collecting personal photographs of people who have taken part in the organized trip, which are going to be part of the exhibition in Rousse and then shown in Vaska Emanouilova Gallery in Sofia.

This transformed perspective of the events is something which is of great interest to Kamen Stoyanov. Apart from the Let’s go to Giurgiu! video the project also includes four more video works of the author. Each of them concerns the sometimes strange, accidental and unexpected conventionalities of our everyday life where the “big” topics of contemporary culture take a different perspective. Among the problems that grab the author’s attention are:
- the modern museum and the cultural representations it works with considered from the point of view of the dynamics of the changing environment outside the museum walls - Roma Open Air Museum, 2006;
- the problem of emigration and the contemporary forms of nomadism in different cultural and political contexts - Move your Hands, 2007;
- the influence of Hollywood and the imprints it leaves on our culture as well as the images it creates with their marketing value and success stories - Don’t move your head, don’t move your hands, don’t move your lips, and you will succeed …, 2006;
- the status of the work of art itself, the broadening of the concepts of a work of art and the technologies of presenting art in the contemporary culture - Underground Butterflies, 2007.

The inclusion of the video films within the framework of the project Places where the world disintegrates: Let’s go to Giurgiu! aims at underscoring the specific standpoint of a documentary reporter and an explorer the artist himself takes in scrutinizing the everyday conventionalities. Each of these conventionalities represents a special moment of transformation and immersion into the current problems of contemporary culture and contemporary art in particular. Each of them is a special kind of an artistic document about a place where our personal concepts, often based on clichés, crack up acquiring a different perspective. The project emphasizes on the place, the topos, the local event which acquire a growing importance in the context of the ongoing processes of globalization.

Initiators of Kamen Stoyanov’s current exhibition are Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia and Elias Canetti International Association, Rousse in co-operation and with the support of the Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria, Robert Bosch Foundation and Sofia Art Gallery.

Curators: Vladyia Mihaylova (curator of Vaska Emanouilova Gallery) and Timo Köster (a scholarship holder of Robert Bosch Foundation in Bulgaria and manager at the Elias Canetti International Association, Rousse.

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Kamen Stoyanov was born in Rousse, Bulgaria in 1977. He graduate from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He graduated in 2005 and is currently an assistant professor to Johanna Kandel at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. He has been awarded a number of prizes: the Academy of Fine Arts Award, Vienna (2005); Young Author’s Award, Zone 1 at the Contemporary Art Fair, Vienna (Viennafair 2007); Visual Arts Award, Vienna (2007). His works can be seen in the contemporary art collections of Vienna Municipality, The Museum of Modern Arts (MUMOK, Vienna) and various private collections.