THE COLLECTION. NEW ACQUISITIONS

January - March 2008

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.