Donation by the Bulgarian Artists for the Arteast 2000 Collection

Photo: Dejan Habicht

9. - 18. 1. 2015
Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana

Luchezar Boyadjiev, Alla Georgieva, Ivan Moudov, Kiril Prashkov, Kalin Serapionov, Krassimir Terziev

The donation was initiated by Iara Boubnova, a curator, art critic and director of the National Museum of Foreign Art in Sofia. The donated works are on display in the first floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. Some of those works will be transported to the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow to be part of the exhibition Grammar of Freedom / 5 Lessons: Works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection, opening on 5 February 2015.

Most of those works relate critically to the present society; Luchezar Boyadjiev, for example, has been examining the relations between art, economy and everyday life by investigating the processes of creation and transfer of cultural and economic capital. In his work GastARTbeiter, 2000 Boyadjiev associates the status of a migrant worker with that of an artists: while the first is selling his ability to work to a foreign economy, the second is investing time and effort in creating cultural value in return for no adequate monetary reward. Krassimir Terziev in the documentary video project entitled Battles of Troy, 2005 represents a study on the internal economy of the contemporary globalized cinema production, critically and ironically tracing the economic and political interconnections in the film industry. Three digital prints emtitled Alla's Secret, 2000 are inspired inspired by the world of advertisement. The artist Alla Georgieva investigates the contrast between advertising strategies and the real life. The title of the work is a paraphrase of the name of the worldwide famous underwear company "Victoria's Secret". She advertises underwear and at the same time she "advertises" her own life by cooking three traditional Bulgarian dishes in her house. The video The Museum - Cause of Meeting and Acquaintance, 1997 by Kalin Serapionov is about the art museum in Sofia in the period of transition to neo-capitalism. Ivan Moudov's series of twelve prints and collages Certificate of Name Giving (Moderna galerija Ljubljana), 2013 is related to the untitled works in the Moderna galerija's collection.

Ivan Prashkov's series of etchings Wire 1-5, 1989 is the oldest among the donated works and also connected to Ljubljana. The work was chosen to be sent to the International Biennial of Graphic Arts at the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, but it never reached its destination because the subject (barb-wire) was presumably too problematic for the communist authorities in Bulgaria.