11 September 2020 - 25 October 2020

After September 11: Images from Ground Zero documents the devastation and reconstruction of the World Trade Center in the aftermath of 9/11/2001. This extraordinary archive of pictures is the only existing photographic record of the attacks. Fenced off and classified as a crime scene, the area was closed to all photographers, and only scant information was available about the activites in the guarded enclosure that became known as the "forbidden city."What happened at Ground Zero in the months after 9/11 remained a closely guarded secret, yet one photographer documented everything.

Through sheer persistence involving almost daily acts of resourcefulness and defiance, Meyerowitz became the sole photographer to have continued access to the site and describe its transformation over the next nine months from a place of total devastation to cleared bedrock.

The photographs of Mayerowitz can be seen as an elegy to the thousands of people that lost their lives, but they also capture the tireless efforts of the multitude of police officers, firemen, construction workers, engineers and volunteers who participated in the clean-up process. The images of physical devastation and emotional power in the pictures serve as a backdrop for the moments of courage, compassion and solidarity at the reconstruction site. The World Trade Center Archive, consisting of thousands of Meyerowitz's images, is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

 Who is Joel Mayerowitz?

 After more than fifty years of snapping pictures, Joel Mayerowitz (b. 1938) has been recognized as one of the most influential street photographers and a pioneer of the New color photography movement. A good street photographer should have two basic qualities: the patience to wait for unpredicted moments and the skill to seize them by pressing the shutter button. Mayerowitz has both of these talents, regardless of whether he shoots in black-and-white or in color, and quickly established himself as a master of his trade. Throughout the 60s and the 70s color photography was not taken seriously and had no place in the world of art dominated by black-and-white images. The work of several pioneers, including Joel Mayerowitz, played a crucial role in changing that attitude. As one of the founders of the New color photography, he has greatly affected the work of the younger generations and is a two-time holder of the Guggenheim Fellowprize prize. He was also presented with the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities awards, a medal from the Royal Photographic Society, Deutscher Fotobuchpreis, as well as Leica’s Hall of Fame Award.

 Joel Mayerowitz is the author of more than thirty books and his work has appeared in 350 solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries across the globe: NRW-Forum in Dusseldorf (2014), Miami Art Museum (2011), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2004), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1981), Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1980) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1968). His photographs are part of large public collections, incl. the ones of MoMA, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

 The exhibition is part of the 2020 Cultural Events Calendar of the Metropolitan Municipality and is being realized in partnership with the US Embassy, with special thanks to Joel Meyerowitz studio, Howard Greenberg gallery, New York, and Polka gallery, Paris.

28 July 2020 - 30 August 2020

Sofia City Art Gallery,
Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia and Edmond Demerdzhiyan Foundation

in partnership with:

Foundation for a Civil Society, New York,

and the Young Visual Artists Awards international network

present:

Exhibition of 2020 BAZA Award for Contemporary Art Nominees:
Nataliya Yordanova, Yavor Kostadinov, Maria Nalbantova,
Boryana Petkova, Kalas Liebfried (Kaloyan Lyubomirov)

The Young Visual Artists Awards (YVAA) international network, which was established in 1990, is among the most sustainable programs promoting cultural exchange between the USA and Central and Eastern Europe.
The BAZA Award, Bulgaria, is administered by theInstitute of Contemporary Art – Sofia andthe Edmond Demerdzhiyan Foundation in partnership with the Sofia City Art Gallery. The annual competitionis open for artists up to 35 years of age, who are required to submit a portfolio. The jury, whose members are replaced biennially, selects four to eight nominees. The exhibition of works by award nominees is hosted by the SCAG. The award winner is announced at the exhibition opening. The award entitles a Bulgarian artist to a two-month residency in New York City. BAZA Award winners are also given the chance to present their work in a solo exhibition at the gallery of the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia.   
BAZA Award winners include: Rada Bukova (2008), Samuil Stoyanov (2009), Anton Terziev (2010), Vikenti Komitski (2011), Leda Ekimova (2012), Cyril Kuzmanov (2013), Zoran Georgiev (2014), Alexandra Chaushova (2015), Dimitar Shopov (2016), Martina Vacheva (2017), Martin Penev (2018), and Valko Chobanov (2019).

Members of the 2020 jury are: Desislava Dimova (curator), Irina Batkova (curator), Bilyana Rubinova (artistandcurator), Miryana Todorova (artist), Martin Penev (artist).

The jury’s decision is traditionally announced at the exhibition opening.

Nataliya Yordanova was born 1991 in Sofia. She studied photography at the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts, Sofia, continuing her studies in the Hague and Amsterdam, where sha has moved permanently. Yavor Kostadinov was born in 1993 in Plovdiv, where he lives and works. He majored in painting at the National Academy of Arts, Sofia.Maria Nalbantova was born in 1990 in Sofia, where she lives and works. She graduated from the National Academy of Arts, Sofia. Boryana Petkova (born 1985) has studied at the National Academy of Arts, Sofiaand the Valenciennes School of Art and Design in France.She lives and works in Paris. Kalas Liebfried (Kaloyan Lyubomirov) was born in 1989 in Svistov, Bulgaria. He studied philosophy, and later, sculpture and media arts in Munich, where he lives and works.

The winner of BAZA Award 2020 is Maria Nalbantova.

19 June 2020 - 19 July 2020

This latest exhibition at the Sofia City Art Gallery (SCAG) pays tribute to the unbounded talents of Christo, who left this earthly world just shy of his 85^th birthday.

Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of his life,despite thinking, feeling and acting cosmopolitan, and irrespective of his predestined life choices and his civilizational choice, Christo never concealed his Bulgarian origin.His encounter with Jeanne-Claude in Paris in 1958, became a turning point both in his life and in his art. It begot also the happy consonance of their exceptionally harmonious and successful artistic tandem.

Visitors to the exhibition will see five lithographs and photogravures of Christo’s projects. They are part of the SCAG's collection and were acquired in 2015 when the retrospective exhibition ‘Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Prints and Objects 1963-2014’ was presented for the first time in Bulgaria.Back then, the exhibition was organised with the exclusive supportof the great artist who provided his works free of charge to be displayed in all three halls of the gallery.

Alongside the lithographs and photogravures, visitors to the exhibition will see various texts about Christo’s personality and oeuvre authored by American art critics Michael Kimmelman (the architecture critic of The New York Times) and Jerry Saltz (senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine),as well as by the Russian art critic Anna Tolstova ("Коммерсантъ Weekend").All three articles were written immediately after Christo’s death. Texts by Bulgarian journalist and writer GeorgiLozanovand by Bulgarian artist Luchezar Boyadjiev will also be on display. Visitors will have the opportunity to see a little-known interview that Christo gave to GeorgiLozanov in his New York atelier. The interview was filmed by Bulgarian theatre and film director StoyanRadev.The video is dubbed in Bulgarian. It has been kindly provided to the Sofia City Art Gallery by Bulgaria ON AIR TV.

A special attraction of the exhibition will be its film programme consisting of 6 films, all in English, about Christo and Jeanne-Claude's best-known projects.

18 March 2020 - 01 November 2020

The exhibition presents Constantine Starkelov’s life and art based on archival material, namely photographs, personal diaries, recollections,  letters from contemporaries of the artist, documents, articles and reviews concerning his artworks featured in newspapers and magazines, and last but not least, works by the artist created throughout his career.

Once a marginal figure, struggling artist, loner, wanderer, bohemian, Starkelov, a widow’s son, became the epitome of artistic success. Disregarding safe vantage points, the artist opted for creation and creativity, leaving behind landscapes from around Bulgaria and the world, numerous portraits, and images of war.

What the above reveal is the image of a person who is fond of life, the company of friends, songs, poetry, fine wine, parties. Yet the artist would endure plenty of hardships throughout his life. He would not always have sufficient means to create art, attend to his own needs or the needs of his family. Regardless of his restlessness and frequent anxiety, the artist remained optimistic, poetic, sincere, and charged with pantheistic love for nature, all of which helped him create hundreds of artworks.

To him, Nature was the key to an alternative world of mountains, fields, rivers, and valleys, purging him of all worldly things, bestowing upon him sincerity of feeling. A feeling that helped him find creative inspiration – joy and sadness, admiration and reverence. Thus, the artist became a loner at this stage of his life.

The lonesome wanderer who created new horizons out of the freedom he enjoyed in nature. He was the first to reach them. Alone. But not for long – these new horizons came closer. Within reach. Upon the last touch of the brush, upon its last stroke, they would belong to the World, to everybody else.

In commemoration of the 130^th anniversary of Starkelov’s birth, the SCAG team set out to recover the timeline of the artist’s life and career going over hundreds of documents, articles, recollections, texts and other archival material. The study helped learn more about the artist’s life, the number and types of artworks he contributed to various exhibitions throughout the years, and the original titles Starkelov gave to his paintings.

The exhibition features more than 300 works, including oil and watercolour paintings, as well as drawings, showcasing the artist’s work across his entire career. The bulk of his work is to be found at the Central State Archives, the National Gallery o andthe National Museum of Military History. Smaller in volume, yet playing a significant role in the study, are the works belonging to the permanent collections of galleries and museums across the country: Sofia City Art Gallery, Plovdiv City Art Gallery, Boris Georgiev Varna City Art Gallery, Dimitar Dobrovich Sliven City Art Gallery, Dobrich City Art Gallery, Kazanlak City Art Gallery, Nikolay Pavlovich Svistov City Art Gallery, Ruse City Art Gallery, Smolyan City Art Gallery, Stanislav Dospevski Pazardzhik City Art Gallery,Stara Zagora City Art Gallery, Museum Collection of the National Academy of Arts, National Museum of Literature, Museum of Regional History – City of Kardzhzali, Museum of Regional History – Sofia.

Another significant aspect of the exhibition is the fact that it features works that are being presented for the first time, as well as pieces that have been only rarely been on display. These works come from the collections of the State Cultural Institute Under the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bulgaria’s diplomatic missions in Ankara, Belgrade, Berlin, Bratislava,  the Bulgarian National Bank, the King Boris and Queen Giovanna Historic Preservation Fund, the Arts Research Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, as well as from the Foreign Ministry’s exhibition space.

An exhibition catalogue in Bulgarian and English is available.

Curators:  Adelina Fileva, Krasimir Iliev, Plamen Petrov

27 February 2020 - 15 June 2020

In art history, the term “undated” means that there is no information about the exact date and time when a work was created. In such cases, most often it refers to works created long ago. “ART without/with THE TIMES?” however, displays works of contemporary art that are “fit” to both send us back in time and look into the future. The exhibition is a study of the property of some artistic images and works to remain “con-temporary”, or, in other words, “WITH the times”, years after the date of their creation; works that, over time, have succeeded in synchronising their relevance both with the changing world and the notion of contemporaneity.

The selected works were created between 1979 and... 2027 – a time span deliberately extended, which does not coincide with the established principles of periodization of the artistic process. Without aiming at any historicity, hierarchy or chronological sequence, the exhibition deals with the idea of “sustainability” of certain topics, ideas, quality criteria, stylistic or visual language aspects in art. Paintings from the 1980s are included, in which the skilful artistry goes hand in hand with the tendency to conceptualise. The trend was not dominant for that decade, but it heralded the spirit of the beginning of the transition period, and it fits in with today's processes. Other works that we consider to be “contemporary” in terms of content make a reference to the Antiquity or the Middle Ages – with their meanings, imagery or visual language. Being relevant and contemporary in full swing, they are much more than a document for the time in which they were created or exhibited for the first time. This is because their authors have avoided the transitional relevance. In addition, part of the works in the exhibition try to predict what will happen next in art and in life.

The very definition of “contemporary” has always been problematic for visual art – both because there is no consensus on the question when it started and because our idea of contemporaneity is changing. Distancing itself from both theorising and commenting on any terms and definitions, the exhibition is configured in space by creating links between the works, following the intuitive manner of curating known from recent decades.

17 December 2019 - 16 February 2020

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05 November 2019 - 08 December 2019

In the modern industrial world where social contacts are becoming more and more superficial, and technology has become a substitute for communication, the individual is sinking deeper and deeper into the vacuum of self-isolation.

The Isolated exhibition explores the issues of alienation and loneliness in modern society through the means of expression of photography. Compositions with characters shrouded in darkness and restlessness; portraits with faces broken down into layers of their own projections – the photographer, Vasil Abadzhiev, builds his images relying on the dramatic effect of the contrast between black and white to convey the impression of isolation, helplessness and fear of the future.

Looming against this background of anxiety and loneliness is the message of the exhibition about the need for greater closeness and compassion in the modern world.

The exhibition features 30 large-format monochrome photographs and two video installations.

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Vasil Abadzhiev was born in 1966 in the city of Sliven.

He majored in Painting at the National Academy of Arts, Sofia.

He has had several solo exhibitions in Bulgaria, and he has also participated in multiple collective exhibitions in Bulgaria, Germany, Romania, etc.

He has been working as a theatrical scenographer and costume designer.

He has completed more than 30 scenography projects in Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, and the USA.

18 September 2019 - 27 October 2019

And In s Silent Reverie She’s Waiting… is an exhibition commemorating the 130^th anniversary of Ivan Lazarov’s birth. It seeks to present sculptural works by this remarkable artist, lecturer, academician, thinker, and community leader in the context of Bulgarian art in the first half of the twentieth century. It provides viewers with the opportunity to draw comparisons, take a closer look at certain processes, get a better understanding of trends on the art scene during these dynamic decades, and, most of all, follow the sculptor’s development as an artist, as revealed by his works.

Ivan Lazarov’s art, which has always sparked off interest, has turned into a major reference point in the exploration of themes, directions and solutions in visual art. His sculptural works stand out against the background of Bulgarian art of the first half of the twentieth century, captivating viewers with the meaning they convey, the creative solutions they offer, and their idiosyncratic style. In the period between the two world wars, his work established itself as a significant factor on the art scene, connecting through countless invisible threads the ideas, artists, aspirations, concerns and longings of the time. The organization of this exhibition provided an occasion to bring Lazarov’s legacy up to date by tracking down the location of his works, establishing their condition, and systematizing them anew. This in turn led to the outlining of new approaches to the study, consideration, perception, and presentation in a new light of some forgotten or completely unknown works. Study of the artist’s work, the exhibition, and the catalogue were completed in cooperation with the sculptor’s heirs.

The exhibition presents more than 40 works by Ivan Lazarov, including some completely unknown works being put on display for the first time. Also featured in the exhibition are works by some of the most intriguing and idiosyncratic artists of the first half of the twentieth century, namely Ivan Milev, Vladimir Dimitrov the Master, Ivan Penkov, Nikola Petrov, Pencho Georgiev, Vasil Zahariev, etc. Works included in the exhibition belong to the artist’s family, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the Kyustendil City Art Gallery Vladimir Dimitrov the Master, the Pleven City Art Gallery Iliya Beshkov,  the Svetlin Rusev Donation-Collection, the Kazanlak City Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of the Karlovo Municipality, the Ruse City Art Gallery, the History Museum of the City of Samokov, the Nikola Tanev House Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the museum collection of the National Academy of Arts, the Archives State Agency, private collectors, and the National Gallery of Art.

Curator: Lyuben Domozetski

13 September 2019 - 08 March 2020

Serdika, Sredets, Sofia…during the course of its existence, the city went through various stages of development, and several name changes. In the span of 140 years, since its proclamation as capital, Sofia was transformed from a small settlement with streets ‘knee-deep in mud’ into a significant dynamic city with a personality, spirit, and culture of its own.

The exhibition follows the capital city’s life and development through the works of generations of Bulgarian artists. This unique tour of Sofia landmarks and milestone events is ‘guided’ by the canvases of Anton Mitov, Nikola Petrov, Ivan Getsov, TsankoLavrenov, Nikola Tanev, ZlatyuBoyadzhiev, DechkoUzunov, Tekla Alexieva, Ivan Kirkov, LachezarBoyadzhiev, Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova, Cyril Prashkov, SamuilStoyanov, etc.

Through the images of landmark buildings and sites on paintings and picture postcards, through the impressions and reflections of travelers and intellectuals, we relate stories. The bygone era of post-Liberation excitement, the cultural boom between the two world wars, historic events associated with the landmark year of 1944, the controversial socialist past, and the sources of excitement for contemporary artists are but a few of the themes the exhibition touches upon.

Works featured in the exhibition belong to the permanent collections of the Museum of Regional History, Sofia, the National Gallery of Art, the art galleries of the cities of Kazanlak, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Shumen, Sliven. 

Exhibition-related products,including an album, a children’s game book, and plenty of Sofia merchandise, will be available at the exhibition venue.

The exhibition was designed so as to include contributions from the HristoAlexiev Collection,the Lost Bulgaria website, and bulFoto.

The exhibition was brought to life in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, the Capital City Administration, Aurubis AG, UNIQUA Group, the Bulgarian News Agency, the Bulgarian National Television, and the Bulgarian National Radio

23 July 2019 - 18 August 2019

The Young Visual Artists Awards international network (YVAA) was established in 1990 and stands as one of the most sustainable cultural exchange programs between the U.S. and Central and Eastern Europe. The initiative originated in the Czech Republic where Wendy Luers,  President of the Foundation for a Civil Society, together with several dissident artists and with  the support of Vaclav Havel established the first prize for young artists, aimed at providing creative residency in New York. Nowadays, ten European countries organize similar competitions, administered by local cultural nonprofit organizations and financially supported by International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York (until 2014) and by Residency Unlimited (RU), New York (as of 2015).

In Bulgaria, the BAZA Award was established at the initiative of Maria Vassileva and is run by the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia and Edmond Demirdjian Foundation. The competition is  held annually. It is open to artists up to 35 years of age, who submit a portfolio. A jury elected for a term of two years nominates four to eight participants. The exhibition of nominees takes place at Sofia City Art Gallery. The winner is announced during the opening of the event. The award is a two-month residency of one Bulgarian artist in New York City. The BAZA Award winners have the opportunity to hold a solo exhibition in the gallery of the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia.

Members of the 2019 BAZA jury are: Irina Batkova (curator), Boshko Boskovic (program director of Residency Unlimited, New York), Dessislava Dimova (curator), Karina Kottova (curator), Biliana Rubinova (artist and curator) and Omar López-Chahoud (curator and artistic director of Untitled Art Fair, Miami).

BAZA Award winners from previous years are: Rada Boukova (2008), Samuil Stoyanov (2009), Anton Terziev (2010), Vikenti Komitski (2011), Leda Ekimova (2012), Kiril Kuzmanov (2013), Zoran Georgiev (2014), Alexandra Chaushova (2015), Dimitar Shopov (2016), Martina Vacheva (2017) and Martin Penev (2018).

The first prize goes to the artist Valko Chobanov for the project  #getthatbread, I don’t lose followers followers lose me/ if I win for all our people if I lose I lose only BAZA#follow 4 follow