The Other Eye (initiated by Maria Vassileva) is a series of exhibitions where the museum invites in turn an artist, an architect, a writer, an art critic, a fashion designer, a musician, a doctor, a politician and/or a theoretician to conceive and curate an exhibition using the museum collection. We want to offer to our audience alternative views that will not be solely based on knowledge about art history, style, genre or practice. A view instigating a dynamic dialogue with art works featured in the collection, while providing new opportunities for analysis and interpretation of the artistic heritage that is our mission to preserve and promote.

Our first invitation went out to the artist Luchezar Boyadjiev. He accepted under the condition that he will work complying only with his artistic views, talent, imagination, spatial thinking, perception of visual form and ability to tell a story through art works; intuition, psyche, views on art and its place in the world and people’s lives; to work in a way that suits his concept of collegial ethics or lack thereof; his views on the art museum and the latter’s life through the works collected there; his perception of the art audience as well as to work only with similar notions and principles of his choosing...

According to Luchezar Boyadjiev the most important thing about this exhibition is that everything in it is personal. He invites the viewers to think of his exhibition as of an installation of ready-made objects that the artist found in the storage of the museum.

Naturally when he “dares” to freely interpret works from the SCAG collection while treating them as components for his installation, the artist is relying on his art history education as well. Luchezar Boyadjiev is searching to deconstruct the clichés of Bulgarian art history by reconstructing the misleading randomness he witnessed in the way artworks are stored in the museum’s storage. In this he is using his own perspective: “To put it briefly, if you ever happened to wonder whether there is anything that connects artists and their works throughout art history other than the fact that they all make art, this project and this installation will help you realize that artists are connected by the very same things that connect everything and all people around the world in this life – from the pub to the bed, from the paint color of the living room to the ideal for female beauty in the 1930’s or the 1990’s; from career aspirations and sucking up to the powers of the day to the torments and revelations experienced by the spirit of the artist, the saint, the wrestler, the shop owner or the neighborhood key maker”.

Luchezar Boyadjiev is searching for connections between the artworks in a way that „may turn out to be not only ahistorical, but also disturbing” hoping that the dialogue between the various works in the exhibition will be more vital than expected. The artist is convinced that his approach will kick start the collection on a life that is more active and humane, a kind of life that is more artistic, challenging and innovative. He hopes that the viewers will get satisfaction, knowledge and possibly inspiration that will encourage them to think of their museums as part of their own lives and world.

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Luchezar Boyadjiev was born on October 12, 1957 in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 1980 he graduated the National Art Academy, Sofia, majoring in Art History. He is a co-founding member of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia (1995). In 1992 he was the curator of Bulgarian participation in the 3rd International Biennial in Istanbul, Turkey.

Over the last years he has had solo exhibitions with: Feinkost Gallery, Berlin (2007); the Experimental Art Foundation (EAF), Adelaide, Australia (2006); and within the Arte Fiera, Bologna, Italy (2004). His more recent group exhibitions are: “Common History and its Private Stories”, MUSA (Museum auf Abruf), Vienna, Austria; “Wealth of Nations”, within “Cinema City” Film and Media Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia; “Liquid Frontiers”, Europe XXL/Lille 3000, Tri Postal, Lille, France; “Bad Times/Good Times”, Futura - Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, the Czech Republic (2009); “Art, Price and Value”, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy; “Wonder”, 2nd Biennial in Singapore; “The Jerusalem Show”, Al-Ma’mal Foundation, the Old City of Jerusalem; “Eurasia”, MART, Rovereto, Italy; “Lucky Number Seven”, 7th SITE Biennial, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; “Land of Human Rights: At the Limits of the Thinkable”, , Graz, Austria; “Brave New World…”, IFA Gallery, Berlin/Stuttgart, Germany (2008); 3rd Prague Biennial, Prague, the Czech Republic; “Attitude 2007”, CAMK, Kumamoto, Japan; “Footnotes: on Geopolitics, Markets and Amnesia”, 2nd Biennial, Moscow, Russia (2007).

He has had residencies with the Getty Foundation (USA), KulturKontakt (Austria), the Municipality of Paris (France), the Sharjah Biennial (UAE), etc., while working in New York, Philadelphia, Vienna, Paris, Sharjah, Worpswede (Germany), Novi Sad, and Seoul among others. Over the years he has been presenting widely as well as participating in numerous conferences, discussions and workshops.

Luchezar Boyadjiev is one of the most prominent Bulgarian artists on the international art scene. His works deal with urban issues, construction of audiences as well as with personal interpretation of social and political processes.

TOUCH OF LIGHT THOMAS KOCHEV

24 March 2010 - 02 May 2010

The exhibition commemorates the 70th anniversary of Thomas Kochev’s birth – an artist who acquired a prominent place in the tradition of Bulgarian sculpture. Without being a retrospective, the exhibition features thirty wood, ceramic and bronze sculptures, as well as a substantial number of drawings thus presenting the rare opportunity to get a comprehensive idea of the artist’s work.
Thomas Kochev entered the Bulgarian art scene in 1971, remaining an active presence on it until his death in 1997. His sculptures represent an organic whole of sense of material, exquisite form and artistic freedom of thought. Immersed in a world of their own, they convey the idea of enlightenment and spiritual heightening. Wood, which is Thomas Kochev’s preferred material, lends the images the sensual and intimate feel of living matter with all of its warmness and vulnerability.

Drawings comprise a significant part of the exhibition, as they give a comprehensive idea of the sculptor’s artistic visions. Artistic, spontaneous, characterized by a graceful and temperamental outline, they precede, follow and summarize the evolution of his sculptural work.

The delicate dialogue with Greek antiquity or medieval wood engraving, with the classics or the primal energy of the material comprise an organic alloy of a personal style based on substantial experience and deep thought, of a unique artistic language, which, untouched by changing influences, tendencies and tastes, brings aesthetical values to the level of spiritual ones.

Works featured in the exhibition belong to the Sofia City Art Gallery, the National Art Gallery, the “Iliya Beshkov” Pleven City Art Gallery, the Silistra City Art Gallery, Svetlin Rousev atelier-collection, and other private collections.

Curator: Svetla Georgieva

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Thomas Stavrov Kochev was born on April 1, 1940 in Banitsa, Greece. In 1948 his family emigrated first to Yugoslavia, then to the Czech Republic and Romania. In 1968 he majored in sculpture in the City of Cluj, Romania. Until 1970 he worked as a scenographer at the Hungarian opera in the City of Cluj. In 1971 he moved together with his family to Bulgaria, remaining in the capital city of Sofia till the end of his life. He died in 1997.
In the period between 1971 and 1990 he participated in all general art exhibitions held in Bulgaria, as well as in sculpture symposia in the City of Bourgas, the village of Yasna Polyana, the District of Bourgas, Hungary, Romania, the 1984 Paris Autumn Salon. In 1975 and 1985 he had solo exhibitions in Sofia.
A posthumous exhibition of his works was held at the SiBank Gallery in 2008. He won the annual Union of Bulgarian Artists award for sculpture in 1983 and 1989. Tomas Kochev designed monuments to be found in the Bulgarian towns of Chirpan and Troyan and in the village of Vaklino in North-Eastern Bulgaria.
Works of his belong to the collections of the National Art Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the Varna City Art Gallery, the Pleven City Art Gallery, the Smolyan City Art gallery, the Botevgrad City Art Gallery, the Silistra City Art Gallery, Hugo Vuten’s collection and various private collections in Bulgaria and abroad.