The exhibition is a large-scale international eventpresenting a variety of styles and trends in cartoon drawing through works devoted to the topical and ever so sensitive issue of man and the city. Transcending the bounds of what is simply funny, the said works encourage contemplation and make alarming conclusions, reminding about the responsibility we all share in the effort to prevent the pending world catastrophe. On the other hand, charged with the indestructible power of laughter, the cartoons also inspire hope that man has the capacity to change the course of events andtake good care of the Earth, our only home, the home that all of us share.

Some 386 works from 50 countries around the world were turned in for participation in the exhibition. The jury has selected 96 caricatures by 78 artists from 29 countries.

The originals of the latter works will be on display at the Sofia City Art Galleryexhibition hall, while their enlarged copies will be featured in an exhibition put up on the bridge behind the National Palace of Culture.

Prize winners will be announced upon the exhibition’s opening at the Sofia City Art Gallery. Selection has been made of the first, second and thirdprize winners, as well as of the winners of 10 other special prizes to be awarded on behalf of media partners.

The exhibition organizers seek to establish the event as an annual international cartoonists’ festival.

The exhibition was organized in cooperation with the Sofia City Municipal Authority, the “Cartoon drawing” section at the Union of Bulgarian Artists, FECO – Bulgaria /Federation of Cartoonists’ Organizations/, SRN – Bulgaria /Organization for the Protection of Cartoonists’ Rights/.

XXL GROUP REMINISCENCES OF THE 1990S

12 October 2010 - 21 November 2010

Svilen Stefanov, Houben Tcherkelov, Kosio Minchev, Georgi Tushev, Ivan Kiuranov, RASSIM, Genadi Gatev, Georgi Rouzhev, Peter Raychev, Anatoliy Osmolovski, David D’Agostino, Boris Serginov, Rosen Toshev, Krassimir Dobrev, Dimitar Yaranov

The exhibition features selected works by artists from the XXL Gallery circle. The said gallery existed during the 1990’s in Sofia. In artistic circles the group has traditionally been associated with intentionally provocative artworks, actions and exhibition concepts. The group’s main strategy is to dare the public to notice and respond to art, adopting a critical stance on anything traditional, as well as on politics, social morals and popular culture.
„…What distinguishes these artists from other artists is their clear willingness to promote social radicalism in art, focusing on burning social issues, mutating morals, political perversions and even the status quo-loving stance of quasi-commitment, adopted by certain artistic circles. There is willingness to encourage new moral action aiming to change social imagination, yet not in a prescriptive manner, but rather by attempting to activate the process of autocommunication in each and every viewer tempted by modern art…”, as Svilen Stefanov puts it with reference to the said group.
The Sofia City Art Gallery-hosted exhibition includes videos, photographs, paintings, installations and objects created by members of the circle and featured in XXL Gallery exhibitions over the group’s most productive period, namely between 1994 and 2003.
This exhibition is based on a series of defining events from XXL’s history, while in November the “Academia” Gallery will be hosting the sequel to the exhibition, which will feature new works by the same artists, who have been working in Bulgaria and the USA over the last years.
The XXL manifesto was written in January, 1995 and was first published in the “Koultura” newspaper to be supplemented and republished later in the “Literatouren Vestnik” newspaper. In 1996 the group founded the XXL Gallery and the “Contemporary Art” Foundation, both of which went on to exist until 2003 at 2 “Macedonia” Sq. in Sofia.
Some of the most popular exhibitions initiated by the XXL circle are: “Kosio, Houben, Tushev” (1997), “Dimensions of Violence” (1998), “Gangstart” (1998), “Antifeminism, Antimachismo“ (2000), “Let kick the culture” (2000), ”Bulgarian Landscape As a Methaphor” (2001), as well as the exhibition cycle ”New Radical Practices” (1997 through 2001).
Regardless of the fact that the gallery closed down after the "Anti-Saxe. New Political Art" exhibition in 2003 and the larger part of the artists belonging to the group emigrated, they never lost touch, and kept working till the present day in various genres and various placesround the world.

http://xxlgallery.hit.bg/

Lika and Genko

05 October 2010 - 21 November 2010

Lika Yanko (1928-2001) and Genko Genkov (1923-2006) are two Bulgarian artists who ventured into the art scene at a time of dramatic changes. Two artists, who, in an age of incessant compromising, never gave up their beliefs, both of them finding their own truth in art in their own individual ways. Genko – expressively and exultantly and Lika – in a relaxed in-depth manner.

During the 1950’s Lika and Genko stayed close to one another in terms of style, creating landscapes, whose colours and form do not stick to the prescriptive norm of socialist realism. Later, during the 1960’s, they gradually start heading in opposite directions, Lika’s white canvases standing in contrast with Genko’s explosions of colour. All of this culminates in his almost abstract landscapes and her mythological-cum-poetic compositions. Side by side display of their works allows the viewer to trace the intrinsic similarity between them. Lika relies on linearity to transform the medieval Christian Orthodox style of icon-painting, while Genko ferociously interprets its iconic colourfulness.

The “Lika and Genko” exhibition is an attempt to reveal the main directions in two artists’ journeys to their own selves. The choices they made as human beings and artists prove that getting to the end of the road to divinity invariably involves passing through the gate of freedom.

The exhibition was organized in cooperation with theNational Art Gallery, the Varna City Art Gallery, the Sliven City Art Gallery, the Kurdzhali City Art Gallery and private collectors.

Curator: Krassimir Iliev