All electronic information media have short life. The museums and collections all over the world face this problem. The total loss of digital data is part of a horror scenario. This problem has been more and more clearly recognized, since in the meantime the video record becomes the all too often used artistic means of expression.

The German Federal Cultural Foundation’s initiative, “40 Years of Video Art in Germany – Digital Heritage” has set the objective to save, protect and transmit the cultural heritage of video art that has become one of the most fascinating forms of art of the twentieth century. Such comprehensive project is implemented for the first time in Germany involving five museums in Karlsruhe, Dusseldorf, Bremen, Munich and Leipzig.

For two years original records have been collected, copies have been compared and their artistic merits have been estimated in order to record all formats in the best possible digital method. An option has been found and for the first time electronic information has been restored from extremely valuable historical video tapes. Part of the outcomes of this research is being presented with the itinerant exhibition “40 Years of Video Art in Germany” offering the opportunity to make ourselves familiar with the history of this form of creative work.

A special hanging-committee has selected 59 works, which have not only a historical value, but are also of present interest. They have been created in the period between 1963 and 2005. Among the authors we see the names of both legendary artists of the sixties and of emblematic figures of the following decades, as well as the newest reinforcements on the German artistic stage. Against the background stand out artists like Jan Dibets, Otto Pignet, Joseph Beuys, Rebecca Horn, Marcel Odenbach, Rosemary Troeckel, Christian Jankowski, etc.

THE COLLECTION. NEW ACQUISITIONS

25 January 2008 - 30 March 2008

Sofia Art Gallery presents its most recent acquisitions in the field of Painting, Graphics, Sculpture and Contemporary Art and Photography gained in the last years as purchases or donations. What is going to be displayed are works representing different periods of Bulgarian art by various generations of artists.

Due to the financial support of Sofia Municipality in 2007 the gallery managed to purchase the first works since 1991 but its main source of filling up the museum stock are still the donations of the authors themselves, their heirs and collectors.

The exhibition reflects the logic of setting up a museum collection and the principles of selecting the works of art. The collection follows chronologically the history of art showing the different trends in its development and putting an emphasis on specific authors, periods or particular exhibitions and events of extreme significance.

Among the newly acquired pieces of art there are some works by authors with an overall contribution to the development of Bulgarian art like Zlatyu Boyadzhiev, Peter Dochev, Vesselin Staikov, Boris Denev, Yoan Leviev, Dimitur Kirov, Olga Vulnarova, Genko Genkov, Lyuben Dimanov, Roumen Gasharov. The inclusion of works by Stanislav Pamukchiev, Bozhidar Boyadzhiev, Krassimir Dobrev and Vencislav Zankov is a step towards filling up an almost non researched stage in the development of contemporary painting and plastic art which began in the late 80ies. What is also represented is the period which gave rise to contemporary art in Bulgaria with works like Lyuben Kostov’s moving Time machine which took part in the Third Istanbul biennale in 1992. Since the gallery functions as a certain museum of Sofia a focal point in the selection are works dedicated to the city we live in like Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova’s Sofia Lions and Kiril Prashkov’s Responsible Painting. This selection is also grounded in the increased interest of contemporary artists in the urban topic. Alla Georgieva’s emblematic cycle Alla’s Secret is representative for the development of artistic feminism in Bulgaria in the 90ies. The museum collection also includes works by the young authors Svetozara Alexandrova and Samuil Stoyanov who in the recent years have been among the most actively working artists in the field of contemporary art.