The exhibition commemorates the 110th anniversary of the birth of renowned sculptor Vaska Emanuilova. Her aesthetical views and presence helped her shape her signature style and earn a prominent, well-deserved place in the history of Bulgarian sculpture. The major part of her artistic output comprises accomplishments in the nude body genre. Throughout her whole career as an artist, which spanned close to six decades, she would keep going back to this timeless theme – the human body at its most expressive, namely when in the nude. Vaska Emanuilova rediscovered it for herself, as well as for Bulgarian art through innovation. For her, the nude body is a storyline reflecting not only physical characteristics or formal attention to detail, but also something more profound, related to spirituality and life itself.

Works belonging to this genre created during various periods have been added to the SCAG collection through the years, thus building an intriguing collection. In 1999, the City Gallery presented the “Nude Body” exhibition, which featured numerous paintings and several sculptures.

The current exhibition features a substantial part of the artworks belonging to the “Nude Body” genre, stored at the SCAG “Sculpture” and “Graphic Arts” departments. The exhibition focuses on sculptures and drawings from the period between the 1930’s and the 1980’s, when Vaska Emanuilova created the bulk of her artwork. Also included in the exhibition are works by other Bulgarian artists, some of whom still show interest in the genre. The exhibition features more than 80 artworks from the SCAG collection belonging to the genres of sculpture, drawing, including pastel drawing, and watercolor painting. Viewers will see works by Lyubomir Dalchev, Mara Georgieva, Nikolay Shmirgela, Galin Malakchiev, Pavel Koychev, Thomas Kochev, Spartak Dermendzhiev, Pencho Dobrev, Emil Popov, Kiril Mateev, etc. The exhibition also features a presentation of drawings by Gredi Assa, Marco Behar, Svilen Blazhev, Georgi Pavlov – Pavleto, etc., both as an idiosyncratic counterpoint and a parallel, complementing storyline. Works featured in the exhibition reflect varying artistic approaches and styles, thus demonstrating the diversity of artistic expression in the domain of visual arts.

Caution: Wet Paint!

11 June 2015 - 30 August 2015

The exhibition presents the diverse trends in painting that have prevailed in the recent years in our country. It includes some of the latest works of 33 artists, whose average age is 30 years.

Such sizeable reviews of the current status of work types in contemporary art not only contribute to the research work of the museum, they also enable the public to receive a comprehensive view and impression of what happens in the art scene today.

During the last decade or so, several new generations of painter artists were introduced. Until today, there has not been organized a large and representative exhibition of their works that would reveal the changes in this kind of art.

Most of the artists are graduates of the National Academy of Arts, some studied painting in foreign countries as well. This affects to a certain extent the way they create their works in terms of style, message and general grasp of the substance of the painting. The exhibition enables us to identify the influences and the experience imparted by different artistic trends in Europe and around the globe, as well as to distinguish the individual style of the artists, regardless of their cultural background, professional experience, and education. The selected artists have versatile work methods and different interests in the variations of contemporary painting.

The exhibition displays abstract and figurative paintings, three-dimensional paintings, pictorial installations. The themes, concepts and stories cover the range from social issues through subjects concerning art itself to the intuitive recreation of thoughts or emotions by means of the pictorial material. In the presented works, the whole active visual surroundings is reflected - urban architecture, graffiti, moving and static ads, television, cinema, internet.

Part of the project is a bilingual color catalogue of 96 pages featuring the participants in the exhibition, and texts by the curators.