Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

In front of the Presidency

The ceremonial change of the guard in front of the Presidency marks the national and public holidays in Bulgaria. The officialchange of the guard takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at 12:00 o’clock.

Conductor Kiril Tarpov
Solоist/s
Ensemble
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Op.41

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Duration 3:15 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Duration 3:15 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Conductor Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Julian Rachlin
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Felix Mendelssohn – Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
Antonín Dvořák – Symphony No.8

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet-fairy - tale by Sergei Prokofieff
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

11:00 and 16:00
Ballet-fairy - tale by Sergei Prokofieff
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Opera by Giacomo Puccini
Duration 3:00 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Chamber Hall
Solоist/s
Stefan Vrachev
David Krumov
Ensemble
Philharmonica String Quartet

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Duration 3:15 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Duration: 3:15 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Duration: 3:15 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Conductor Emil Tabakov
Solоist/s
Nicolas Altstaedt
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Sergei Prokofiev – Symphony-Concerto in E minor, Op. 125
Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor Ni Fan
Solоist/s
Sarah McElravy
Elena Mehandzhiyska
Caner Akgün
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Bohuslav Martinů – Concert Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra
Gabriel Fauré – Requiem, op.48

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Musical fairy tale by Jules Levy /Premiere/
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Duration 2:45 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Musical fairy tale by Jules Levy /Premiere/
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Television show for Sofia Opera and Ballet with author and presenter Miglena Stoycheva
BNT 2 - program "From the front row"
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

A concert with songs from the musicals "Anastasia" and "The Sound of Music"
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Duration 2:45 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Duration 2:45 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Conductor Viliana Valtcheva
Solоist/s
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy – Symphony No. 4 Italian, Op. 90

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor Neeme Järvi
Solоist/s
Stathis Karapanos
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Flute Concerto in D major, K.314/285d
Hans Rott – Symphony No.1

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Musical by Alexandar Raichev
Duration 1:00
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in Bulgarian.

Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Duration 2:50 with 1 intermission
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Musical fairy tale by Jules Levy /Premiere/
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Musical by Andrey Drenikov
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
It is performed in Bulgarian.

Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Duration 2:50 with 1 intermission
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Conductor Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Sherry Tse
Soojung Park
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Camille Saint-Saëns – Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for Violin and Orchestra in А minor, Op. 28
Robert Schumann – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, оp.54
Antonín Dvořák – Symphony No.8

Ballet by Mikis Theodorakis
Duration 2:00 with 1 intermission
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet by Ludwig Minkus
Duration 2:45 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Conductor Maria Valchanova
Solоist/s Svetlin Hristov
Ensemble
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Alexander Tanev – “Our Father”
Alexander Tanev – Tebe Poem
Alexander Tanev – Ressurection (text by Emiliyan Stanev)
Lubomir Pipkov – Two Songs from the “Muffled Songs” Cycle
Alexander Tanev – “In the Monastery” for Piano
Lubomir Pipkov – Two Madrigals from “Four Madrigals for Mixed Choir on a poems by Elisaveta Bagryana”
Lubomir Pipkov – From “Spring Whims”
Alexander Tanev – Good Night
Alexander Tanev – Hymn of St. Clement of Orchid

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet by Ludwig Minkus
Duration 2:45 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor Hye Ri Kim
Solоist/s Jan Sekaci
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Joseph Haydn – Symphony No.103 “Drumroll” in E flat Major