EMIL POPOV 6th of May - the Day of Bravery personages-objects

05 May 2004 - 10 May 2004

The tradition as a shape– exhibition in the museum hall – this presentation of Emil Popov has untypical character. Only for three days, the last of which is highly respected by the Bulgarians (and official holiday for several years) 6 MAY – THE DAY OF BRAVERY - the Sofia Art Gallery will engage several persons-objects in an original dialogue between them: Agnus Dei, Newly born lambs, Horse, A Snake and a Child, drawing, barren soil from the village of Dren, photographs.

In the artist’s creative work, the topics of bravery and sacrifice and his understanding of the notion is the bravery for one to live outside extreme heroism.

MEETING POINT Ivan Kanchev. Tactile Ceramics

27 April 2004 - 20 May 2004

Art for the blind. This is the shortest description of the project, on which Ivan Kanchev has been working for seven years now and which may reasonably be defined as unique. There have not been such projects in Bulgaria and according to the artist’s research, his ceramics has no analogue in the world.
Ivan Kanchev started his work on the project as a second-year Ceramics student (1997) at the National Art Academy. He conducted profound research showing that hands are the blinds’ most important organs of perception. In order to experience pleasure from the contact with a certain shape, the latter has to evoke pleasant feelings and warmth as well as to call forth a sense of security and tranquility, to be firm – the blinds’ aesthetical criteria for the beautiful are determined by the contact with a smooth, full and firm form. The artist unites in his works the positions of both the sighted and the blind, thus striving for uniting and elimination of the boundaries of difference.

Svetla Petkova

MULTIPLICATION A British Council touring exhibition of Artists Multiples + 11 artists from Bulgaria

01 April 2004 - 02 May 2004

Multiplication is a new touring exhibition of artist’s multiples initiated by the British Council’s Visual Arts Department. The works in this exhibition are united by their lack of uniqueness, usually regarded as a prerequisite in a work of art. Many are commissioned works produced by third parties, whilst others are by artists who work solely with the concept of the multiple. In either case the challenge to the artist is in finding ways of realising an idea that can be repeated time and again. Thus part of the creative challenge comes in researching new methods and sourcing new materials, leading to some unlikely collaborations between artist and fabricators.
The exhibition comprises 62 multiples by 46 artists. The works are displayed in plywood cases which slot together in a system designed especially for Multiplication by the artist Sarah Staton. Each work is identifiable by its catalogue number clearly stencilled throughout the exhibition display system and referenced here on this website.
The exhibition has been selected with the help of Jacqueline Jefferies from Camden Arts Centre, Sarah Staton and Sally Townsend of The Multiple Store. All the works in the exhibition have been drawn from the British Council Collection, and many were acquired specifically for this exhibition from Camden Arts Centre, and The Multiple Store, some work from the exhibition are still available for sale.

MEETING POINT Svetozara Alexandrova. Painting

01 April 2004 - 01 May 2004

The painter Svetozara Alexandrova realizes this project with her typical straightforwardness of the means of expression. The initial collision with this approach leads to a tense perception.
As a starting material for her works were used passport photos – one of the most standard identification documents, which the author turns into fine art. On one of these two big canvases a woman is painted who has involuntarily closed her eyes. This moment turns into a detail of a whole sequence of microscopic movements. Caught by the lens, it is the missing chain of information, which takes the document beyond validity. In another work a man is pictured in between the blinking of the eyes. Tangible are the signs of the advancing age on the faces of both of them, faces visibly unbeautiful and too specific.
The sixteen much smaller in terms of format works represent a multitude of faces of young men also made of standard passport pictures. In these series the standard was used as an instrument stressing the individuality. Each face stands out being different and unique. These bright young faces are present with almost an exorcist strength compared to the enormous disharmonic masks of the man and the woman and they make space for serenity between them.
Svetozara Alexandrova has the ability to stare in this layer in which the latent is transparent and to enforce the doubt in it by ripping it shown. She takes it out methodically through the framing through the purely suggestive image and shaping it with the strength of painting. Thus the suspicion on the internal life stands out summoned by the externally expressed.

Vela Mlechevska

MEETING POINT Evgeni Vassilev. Intuitive Evolution

23 March 2004 - 28 March 2004

The Intuitive Evolution installation presents the process of evolution and integration of people in buildings. The video shows representatives of two generations in their natural habitat through their manner of communication. The computer-generated animation offers a futuristic notion for the situation and human relationships in a daily round depending on technologies.

Evgeni Vassilev born in 1980 has been studying cinema and television at the Visual Arts department of New Bulgarian University. He has been working as a free-lancer; he is into design, graphic design, and video-montage. Member of the Interspace center of media arts.

Galina Dimitrova

SPEECH AND IMAGE

10 March 2004 - 26 March 2004

The year of 2004 is connected with 800 years from the taking over of Constantinople by the army of the Fourth Crusade. The Ivan Duichev Centre of Slavic and Byzantine Research commemorated the event by the Speech and Image exhibition, with one more activity from the agreement concluded in 2003 with the Sofia City Art Gallery aiming to popularize art created in Bulgarian lands and on the Balkans (in 2003 engravings by Hristophor Jeraphovich were shown - a donation by His Holiness The Patriarch of Serbia Pavle, and also works by the contemporary Serbian graphic artist Velko Mihaylov).
Speech and Image includes more than 150 exponents, directly entered the Professor Ivan Duichev Centre of Slavic and Byzantine Research or through the Elena and Ivan Duichevi Foundation after the year 2000, and private persons. They have not been published yet in catalogues or other editions. This is valid for Pavel Panov’s private collection (registered as № 1 of the ‘Stara Sofia’ Municipal enterprise, Sofia Museum of History) and Roumen Manov’s and Petar Hristov’s collections. There are only two panels dating back from 12th century, taken out of the cover of an old-print book, go out of chronological timing of the period between 15-20th century. The rest of the exponents comprise not only 19th but also 20th century.

SPEECH AND IMAGE

10 March 2004 - 26 March 2004

The year of 2004 is connected with 800 years from the taking over of Constantinople by the army of the Fourth Crusade. The Ivan Duichev Centre of Slavic and Byzantine Research commemorated the event by the Speech and Image exhibition, with one more activity from the agreement concluded in 2003 with the Sofia City Art Gallery aiming to popularize art created in Bulgarian lands and on the Balkans (in 2003 engravings by Hristophor Jeraphovich were shown - a donation by His Holiness The Patriarch of Serbia Pavle, and also works by the contemporary Serbian graphic artist Velko Mihaylov).
Speech and Image includes more than 150 exponents, directly entered the Professor Ivan Duichev Centre of Slavic and Byzantine Research or through the Elena and Ivan Duichevi Foundation after the year 2000, and private persons. They have not been published yet in catalogues or other editions. This is valid for Pavel Panov’s private collection (registered as № 1 of the ‘Stara Sofia’ Municipal enterprise, Sofia Museum of History) and Roumen Manov’s and Petar Hristov’s collections. There are only two panels dating back from 12th century, taken out of the cover of an old-print book, go out of chronological timing of the period between 15-20th century. The rest of the exponents comprise not only 19th but also 20th century.

MEETING POINT VESSCULPTURE Vessel Tanev

04 March 2004 - 22 March 2004

Vessel has its clear, overall concept of the sculpture he creates. He works with high technology materials such as brass, phosphor bronze, stainless steel, textolite. His art uses the expression language of industrial production. He utilizes universal machine details and his works remind of industrial design products. The conceptual idea is leading in their creation. The fulfillment is fully based on the principles of mass circulation as per exact preliminary project. As absurd as it may be, their flavor is hidden exactly in this potential re-productivity of the works – an advantage provided by modern technologies.
The presented sculptures are easel works intended for the interior.

SOFIA - A HUNDRED FACES

03 March 2004 - 27 April 2004

The exhibition is dedicated to the 125th Anniversary of proclaiming Sofia the capital of Bulgaria and 75 years from the establishment of a municipal art collection that laid the foundations of the present Sofia Art Gallery.
The gallery’s rich painting collection treating the topic of Sofia includes more than 350 art works (one third of them is shown in the exhibition), purposefully collected for more than six decades. The landscapes and compositions offer us the opportunity to compare more than 100 artists from different generations, representatives of all stylistic trends in Bulgarian art during 20th century – the way they saw Sofia, their preferred urban topics, the city changes from swarming streets and squares to the quiet nooks and outskirts. One city with one-hundred faces.
The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue, with colorful and black and white reproductions of all paintings treating the theme of Sofia from the gallery’s painting fund, and a reference about the artists – bearers of the awards of Sofia in the 40s of the 20th century until present time.

ROTARY CLUB SOFIA IN IMAGES

18 February 2004 - 03 March 2004

The Rotary Club Sofia in Images Exhibition is part of the Cultural-historic Heritage club’s program. The club carries on with its traditional fruitful cooperation with the SAG though this exhibition. It is an original chord finale of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the first Rotary club in our country, whose beginning was also connected with an artistic exhibition at the SCAG /The preserved messages of engineer Watson –British Rotarians in Sofia/.