Show map events
Tuesday 15 October 2024
14 October 2024 - 20 October 2024
November 2024
31.05.2024 - 12.01.2025
NEDKO SOLAKOV
The Palace
Nedko Solakov, who lives in Sofia, is one of the most renowned artists of his generation. He has an impressive professional biography with over 100 solo exhibitions in illustrious museums across Europe, America, and Asia. He has also had long-standing collaborations with prestigious international galleries and has participated in numerous international biennales such as Istanbul, Sydney, Venice, New Orleans, Tirana, Sharjah, Riga, Kathmandu, Moscow, Seville, Sao Paulo, Yekaterinburg, and Thessaloniki, among others. Additionally, he has been part of group exhibitions curated by visionary curators.
Notably, he is the only artist living in Bulgaria who has represented the country at the Biennale di Venezia and has been also included three times in its main curatorial project.
In 2007, he received an “Honorable Mention to an artist exhibited in the central international exhibition” at the 52nd Biennale. Nedko Solakov has also twice participated in the world’s most prestigious contemporary art exhibition, Dokumenta in Kassel.
At the core of Nedko Solakov’s immense success is his art’s ability to resonate with a diverse spectrum of viewers. His stories resonate with all, from sophisticated curators to those who find themselves in museums by chance. His visual language is a dynamic ‘conversation’ between drawing, painting, objects, space, and almost always text – narrative, description, commentary, and word games. His stories themselves are a kind of encyclopedia of the present time – art and artists, nature in all its diversity, current politics, social issues, and the heroes of the day, all woven together by the author with a wealth of emotion and humor, often with self-irony.
The project “A Cornered Solo Show” began back in 2021, when the artist approached directors and chief curators of well-known museums with the request to provide him with an “insignificant” corner in their buildings – a corner that has never been used for exhibitions, but which the public has access to.
So far, three “corners” have been realized in major European museums: #1 at MUDAM – the Grand-Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg (2021), #2 at MAXXI – the National Museum of Art of the Twenty-First Century in Rome (2022), and at the Belvedere in Vienna, which is hosting the “Cornered Solo Show #3 (with Charles Escher as my artistic conscience),” until June 19 this year.
All three exhibitions, united by an unusual, strange, previously unused corner space, tell completely different stories created specifically for their context. At the National Gallery, in such a previously unused “new,” albeit obvious and easily accessible space in the Palace, “A Cornered (Future) Solo Show #4” tells the imaginary story of a humble court painter and his friend, a tiny mouse, who are living under the staircase of the palace. Iaroslava Boubnova, curator of the exhibition.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Nedko Solakov, who lives in Sofia, is one of the most renowned artists of his generation. He has an impressive professional biography with over 100 solo exhibitions in illustrious museums across Europe, America, and Asia. He has also had long-standing collaborations with prestigious international galleries and has participated in numerous international biennales such as Istanbul, Sydney, Venice, New Orleans, Tirana, Sharjah, Riga, Kathmandu, Moscow, Seville, Sao Paulo, Yekaterinburg, and Thessaloniki, among others. Additionally, he has been part of group exhibitions curated by visionary curators.
Notably, he is the only artist living in Bulgaria who has represented the country at the Biennale di Venezia and has been also included three times in its main curatorial project.
In 2007, he received an “Honorable Mention to an artist exhibited in the central international exhibition” at the 52nd Biennale. Nedko Solakov has also twice participated in the world’s most prestigious contemporary art exhibition, Dokumenta in Kassel.
At the core of Nedko Solakov’s immense success is his art’s ability to resonate with a diverse spectrum of viewers. His stories resonate with all, from sophisticated curators to those who find themselves in museums by chance. His visual language is a dynamic ‘conversation’ between drawing, painting, objects, space, and almost always text – narrative, description, commentary, and word games. His stories themselves are a kind of encyclopedia of the present time – art and artists, nature in all its diversity, current politics, social issues, and the heroes of the day, all woven together by the author with a wealth of emotion and humor, often with self-irony.
The project “A Cornered Solo Show” began back in 2021, when the artist approached directors and chief curators of well-known museums with the request to provide him with an “insignificant” corner in their buildings – a corner that has never been used for exhibitions, but which the public has access to.
So far, three “corners” have been realized in major European museums: #1 at MUDAM – the Grand-Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art in Luxembourg (2021), #2 at MAXXI – the National Museum of Art of the Twenty-First Century in Rome (2022), and at the Belvedere in Vienna, which is hosting the “Cornered Solo Show #3 (with Charles Escher as my artistic conscience),” until June 19 this year.
All three exhibitions, united by an unusual, strange, previously unused corner space, tell completely different stories created specifically for their context. At the National Gallery, in such a previously unused “new,” albeit obvious and easily accessible space in the Palace, “A Cornered (Future) Solo Show #4” tells the imaginary story of a humble court painter and his friend, a tiny mouse, who are living under the staircase of the palace. Iaroslava Boubnova, curator of the exhibition.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Exhibitions
06.06.2024 - 31.05.2025
The Wall Vol. 5: Filipina Stamenkova REFLECTIONS
Kvadrat 500 Atrium Entrance at 95, Vasil Levski Blvd.
Curator: Martin Kostashki
The fifth edition of the National Gallery project, ‘The Wall’, presents ‘Reflections’, a site-specific installation by artist Filipina Stamenkova.
The mirror is a unique object, and an aspect of a deeply personal experience within the space where we find ourselves. What we see changes as we move—much like the sequence of frames in a film, an experience based on the principle of anamorphosis.
The artist explains: ‘When visitors reach this wall, they see themselves reflected in the mirror and thus occupy a central place in the installation. In the context of architecture and exteriors, mirrors retain the magical ability to bend, distort, expand and transform images and, through them, our perception of those images and our relationship with the living space. A sometimes pleasant, sometimes surprising or even comforting, often strange and confusing experience, the act of capturing oneself in a reflective surface is so fundamental to our continued assessment. The mirrored surface is strangely passive, yet intrusive and energetic, not only because it reflects the environment and the people around but, because of the very nature of its reflective quality, it transforms the way we see the world that surrounds us.’
When viewers see themselves reflected in a work, art immediately inspires a pronounced interest and creates a magical fascination similar to that in the myth of Narcissus.
The scale of the mirrored sculptural installation expands the visual space of the Kvadrat 500 Atrium, adding another aspect to its entry into the inner life of the gallery—by changing it and creating a new space.
The installation was designed and built by Woood Makerspace, a shared workplace for people with ideas who are skilful with their hands, with tools, and who have an aptitude for engineering. A place for bold projects, design developments and creative workshops in ceramics and woodcarving, the atelier is well known for its production in Georgia, Morocco, South Africa, as well as throughout Europe. To this day, a condition for accepting a commission is that it be complex and require brainstorming and creativity. The Woood brand is also popular for its work with the fashion giant Louis Vuitton, for which it has produced various façade and interior installations for the brand’s boutiques in London, Paris, Tokyo, and other cities. In Bulgaria, Woood is widely known for a number of projects relating to urban causes: the Imp-Act Agency’s Christmas decoration, the hidden letters of the Reading Sofia Foundation, as well as for initiatives developing the capital’s tourist image of the, in partnership with Sofia Airport and soSofia.com, the independent platform for city symbols.
The project was made possible with the financial support of the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Curator: Martin Kostashki
The fifth edition of the National Gallery project, ‘The Wall’, presents ‘Reflections’, a site-specific installation by artist Filipina Stamenkova.
The mirror is a unique object, and an aspect of a deeply personal experience within the space where we find ourselves. What we see changes as we move—much like the sequence of frames in a film, an experience based on the principle of anamorphosis.
The artist explains: ‘When visitors reach this wall, they see themselves reflected in the mirror and thus occupy a central place in the installation. In the context of architecture and exteriors, mirrors retain the magical ability to bend, distort, expand and transform images and, through them, our perception of those images and our relationship with the living space. A sometimes pleasant, sometimes surprising or even comforting, often strange and confusing experience, the act of capturing oneself in a reflective surface is so fundamental to our continued assessment. The mirrored surface is strangely passive, yet intrusive and energetic, not only because it reflects the environment and the people around but, because of the very nature of its reflective quality, it transforms the way we see the world that surrounds us.’
When viewers see themselves reflected in a work, art immediately inspires a pronounced interest and creates a magical fascination similar to that in the myth of Narcissus.
The scale of the mirrored sculptural installation expands the visual space of the Kvadrat 500 Atrium, adding another aspect to its entry into the inner life of the gallery—by changing it and creating a new space.
The installation was designed and built by Woood Makerspace, a shared workplace for people with ideas who are skilful with their hands, with tools, and who have an aptitude for engineering. A place for bold projects, design developments and creative workshops in ceramics and woodcarving, the atelier is well known for its production in Georgia, Morocco, South Africa, as well as throughout Europe. To this day, a condition for accepting a commission is that it be complex and require brainstorming and creativity. The Woood brand is also popular for its work with the fashion giant Louis Vuitton, for which it has produced various façade and interior installations for the brand’s boutiques in London, Paris, Tokyo, and other cities. In Bulgaria, Woood is widely known for a number of projects relating to urban causes: the Imp-Act Agency’s Christmas decoration, the hidden letters of the Reading Sofia Foundation, as well as for initiatives developing the capital’s tourist image of the, in partnership with Sofia Airport and soSofia.com, the independent platform for city symbols.
The project was made possible with the financial support of the Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Exhibitions
20.06.2024 - 24.11.2024
LABOUR: When the Foundations Were Laid
Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
The exhibition focuses on one of the most significant themes in the art of Socialism—labour. Among the artists behind the paintings, sculptures, graphics and applied art works, names such as Iliya Petrov, Dechko Uzunov, Stoyan Sotirov, Nikola Tanev, Stoyan Venev, Ekaterina Savova-Nenova, and Alexander Poplilov, stand out.
Both classic examples of Socialist Realism and unknown or previously unexhibited works are on display. In addition to their high artistic qualities, some of them represent authentic documents from one of the most controversial and dramatic periods in Bulgaria’s political history. Such is Nikola Tanev’s graphic series of the construction of the Lovech-Troyan Railway, the Kutsian mine, and the Republic colliery in Pernik, as well as graphic works by Pavel Valkov depicting the erection of the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in Sofia.
After the Second World War, a totalitarian model of governance was established in Bulgaria, with the Communist Party at the helm. Within a few years only, control had been imposed on all spheres of political, social and cultural life.
Art and culture began to perform propaganda functions. The new ‘proletarian’ or ‘Party’ art created its mythologems, among which—along with the ‘leader’ and the ‘hero’—the image of the worker was assigned a central place.
The Socialist world view made labour one of the principal ideologemes turning it into a rigid narrative and a tool for imposing its own power. It was labour itself that was the instrument, the means for transforming society and the moulding of the new man. The social demiurges remodelled this fundamental, age-old impulse and necessity of human beings to work to ensure their livelihood, into a glorified, almost sacral activity, standing on the loftiest pedestal of Socialist virtues.
The parade pathos of Socialist Realism dominated Bulgarian art from the late 1940s to the end of the 1950s, bequeathing classic examples of this artistic style and thematic engagement. In the subsequent decades of totalitarian rule, the interpretations and intonations of the expression of the theme would change; other motifs and novel imagery were to come, but these will be the subjects of the next editions of the ‘Labour’ exhibition.
Media Partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
The exhibition focuses on one of the most significant themes in the art of Socialism—labour. Among the artists behind the paintings, sculptures, graphics and applied art works, names such as Iliya Petrov, Dechko Uzunov, Stoyan Sotirov, Nikola Tanev, Stoyan Venev, Ekaterina Savova-Nenova, and Alexander Poplilov, stand out.
Both classic examples of Socialist Realism and unknown or previously unexhibited works are on display. In addition to their high artistic qualities, some of them represent authentic documents from one of the most controversial and dramatic periods in Bulgaria’s political history. Such is Nikola Tanev’s graphic series of the construction of the Lovech-Troyan Railway, the Kutsian mine, and the Republic colliery in Pernik, as well as graphic works by Pavel Valkov depicting the erection of the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in Sofia.
After the Second World War, a totalitarian model of governance was established in Bulgaria, with the Communist Party at the helm. Within a few years only, control had been imposed on all spheres of political, social and cultural life.
Art and culture began to perform propaganda functions. The new ‘proletarian’ or ‘Party’ art created its mythologems, among which—along with the ‘leader’ and the ‘hero’—the image of the worker was assigned a central place.
The Socialist world view made labour one of the principal ideologemes turning it into a rigid narrative and a tool for imposing its own power. It was labour itself that was the instrument, the means for transforming society and the moulding of the new man. The social demiurges remodelled this fundamental, age-old impulse and necessity of human beings to work to ensure their livelihood, into a glorified, almost sacral activity, standing on the loftiest pedestal of Socialist virtues.
The parade pathos of Socialist Realism dominated Bulgarian art from the late 1940s to the end of the 1950s, bequeathing classic examples of this artistic style and thematic engagement. In the subsequent decades of totalitarian rule, the interpretations and intonations of the expression of the theme would change; other motifs and novel imagery were to come, but these will be the subjects of the next editions of the ‘Labour’ exhibition.
Media Partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Exhibitions
16.07.2024 - 20.10.2024
BISTRA LECHEVALIER | RETROSPECTIVE
Kvadrat 500
Curator: Yana Bratanova
The National Gallery continues its mission and policy of introducing the public to artists of Bulgarian origin who have won professional recognition beyond the country’s borders.
Bistra Lechevalier is one of a few contemporary conceptual artists who have risen to international prominence. This retrospective exhibition presents her art in Bulgaria for the first time.
For Bistra Lechevalier, freedom is a prime code. Her early compositions from the 1970s—‘Flight of Birds’ (1964), the iconic Window Series (‘Blocked Window’, ‘Burned Window’, ‘White Window’) and ‘Injured Chairs’—are expressions of her overwhelming desire to be free. Everything she has created represents a powerful vehicle for flight beyond limitations.
The artist’s works are made of both natural and industrial materials. She combines gypsum with wood, straw and glass, lending them a particular exquisiteness. It is by skilfully handling paper, resin, caoutchouc, cast iron, lead, cast aluminium and bronze, polyester, neoprene rubber, mirrored surfaces, fabric, ropes, etc., that she realises her dreams and ideas. Possessing an innate ability to search for new forms, she transforms matter in smooth transitions from volume to flatness, and vice versa.
Iconic sculptures, objects, drawings and installations from Bistra Lechevalier’s studio and the Enseigne des Oudin Endowment Fund collection in Paris have now arrived at the National Gallery. The emblematic series include ‘After’ (2024), a large-scale installation, never shown before, and fully adapted to the spatial characteristics of the exhibition gallery. Its twenty sculptural forms, rising to a height of 2.5 metres, symbolise the future, that ‘new, bright beginning that always rises above the ruin’, about which the artist writes in her narrative, ‘The Blue Planet’.
The exhibition was made possible with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, the Culture Programme of Sofia Municipality, the French Institute in Bulgaria, and UniCredit Bulbank.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Curator: Yana Bratanova
The National Gallery continues its mission and policy of introducing the public to artists of Bulgarian origin who have won professional recognition beyond the country’s borders.
Bistra Lechevalier is one of a few contemporary conceptual artists who have risen to international prominence. This retrospective exhibition presents her art in Bulgaria for the first time.
For Bistra Lechevalier, freedom is a prime code. Her early compositions from the 1970s—‘Flight of Birds’ (1964), the iconic Window Series (‘Blocked Window’, ‘Burned Window’, ‘White Window’) and ‘Injured Chairs’—are expressions of her overwhelming desire to be free. Everything she has created represents a powerful vehicle for flight beyond limitations.
The artist’s works are made of both natural and industrial materials. She combines gypsum with wood, straw and glass, lending them a particular exquisiteness. It is by skilfully handling paper, resin, caoutchouc, cast iron, lead, cast aluminium and bronze, polyester, neoprene rubber, mirrored surfaces, fabric, ropes, etc., that she realises her dreams and ideas. Possessing an innate ability to search for new forms, she transforms matter in smooth transitions from volume to flatness, and vice versa.
Iconic sculptures, objects, drawings and installations from Bistra Lechevalier’s studio and the Enseigne des Oudin Endowment Fund collection in Paris have now arrived at the National Gallery. The emblematic series include ‘After’ (2024), a large-scale installation, never shown before, and fully adapted to the spatial characteristics of the exhibition gallery. Its twenty sculptural forms, rising to a height of 2.5 metres, symbolise the future, that ‘new, bright beginning that always rises above the ruin’, about which the artist writes in her narrative, ‘The Blue Planet’.
The exhibition was made possible with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture, the Culture Programme of Sofia Municipality, the French Institute in Bulgaria, and UniCredit Bulbank.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Exhibitions