#sarievselfisolation

#sarievselfisolation
by SARIEV Gallery

Artists: Dimitar Solakov / Iana Boukova / Kalin Serapionov / Kosta Tonev / Maria Nalbantova / Michail Michailov / Mitch Brezounek / Pravdoliub Ivanov / Rudi Ninov / Snejanka Mihaylova / Stela Vasileva / Voin de Voin / Zara Alexandrova

27 March 2020 – 13 May 2020

In the situation of self isolation provoked by COVID-19 pandemic, Sariev Gallery, Vesselina and Katrin Sarievi launched on 27 March 2020#sarievselfisolation .

#sarievselfisolation is a laboratory where the gallery is curating and presenting works of art, texts, videos, sounds, and images that express thoughts on this moment in the life of our world and visions about its tomorrow.

#sarievselfisolation is presenting new works, most of them created or developed after the invitation by Vesselina and Katrin Sarievi. Each artist is in focus for 3 – 4 days.

The selection can be followed under the hashtag #sarievselfisolation in the channels of Sariev in Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

Mitch Brezounek
Plovdiv 2020
#sarievselfisolation
27 March –30 March 2020

In the dark days of the coronavirus, stuck in my flat on the 6th floor in Plovdiv, I can observe the behavior of the population during isolation. Being an anthropologist, I started drawing to record the stereotypes of my fellow citizens. Between imagination and reality, this series of drawings “Plovdiv 2020” emerged, which gives another perspective or even brings a smile in the corner of your mouth without assuaging the situation. / Mitch Brezounek, Plovdiv, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek
Plovdiv 2020, 2020, folder consisting 11 printed digital drawings, 42 х 29 cm each, signed and dated March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, First day, 2020, printed digital, drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Lost on the Highway, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Fitness Bless You, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Take a Break, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Teleworking, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Apocalypse Now, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Smoke on the Water, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Self portrait, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Alone at home, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Desperate Housewives, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek, Social Media, 2020, printed digital drawing from the series “Plovdiv 2020”, March 2020

Mitch Brezounek was born in France in 1989 and is based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. In 2015 he graduated the National Academy of Art in Brittany – Lorient, France. He uses various techniques in the working process such as ceramic, drawing, painting, video installation, animation. From2013 – 2014 he was working as a gallerist assistant in Gallery contemporary photography “Le Lieu” in Lorient. He is member of the art collective Ouest Fisting from Lorient (2013-2016). The collective is part of the underground graphic culture with fanzine, silkcreen print, DYE, video and other media. The collective has been invited to participate in graphic art festivals such as Crack festival, Rome, Italy, 2013, 2014; International Fanzine Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 2014; Hiphip Zine Fair, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2015; Vendetta, Marseille, France, 2016. In 2014 Ouest Fisting won first prize for best fanzine in ‘’Itineraire Graphique’’, Lorient, France with jury Bernhard WillemHoltrop and Muzo.

In recent years, Mitch Brezounek is working in various techniques such as ceramic, drawing, painting, video installation, animation. In 2016, Point Blank gallery presented his solo show “We love Russia”. In 2017 Aether Art Space, Sofia, presented his second solo show “Incubus” with curator Voin de Voin. In 2018 Gallery L’Union, Plovdiv, presented his solo show “Venus Ritual”.
He was part of the group show “Shock und Schrecken”, 2018, in Goethe-Institut Bulgarien, Sofia, curated by Stefka Tsaneva. In 2019 he was part of the group show “Art Start” at Credo Bonum gallery, curated by Vessela Nozharova and Stefka Tsaneva. In 2019 Artnewscafe, Plovdiv, presented his solo show “Life in Plastic”, organized in partnership with gallery Sariev Contemporary.
http://www.sariev-gallery.com/artists/mitch-brezounek/bio

Pravdoliub Ivanov
selection of works, 2020
#sarievselfisolation
1 April – 4 April 2020

If we want life back to the way we liked it, do we have to rethink the values with which we created it?
/ Pravdoliub Ivanov, 31.03. 2020,Sofia, sent in a mail to Vesselina and Katrin Sarievi

Pravdoliub Ivanov
А dream I had on March 24th, 2020, drawing, 29.5 х 21 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

24.03.2020
By 3 in the afternoon I fill dizzy and went to bed. I dreamed that people could see into the future by wearing a simple medical mask put on eyes. I saw a lot of people around me doing it. I moved my mask fromthe mouth
to my eyes and saw how some compelling, invisible force drives the right-handers had to do everything with the left hand and vice versa, the left-handers had to do everything with the right hand. The world was the
same, but much more awkwardly made. I couldn’t understand why everything had the same yellow-reddish color. At first, I decided that everything was made of copper, but then I looked as if things were smeared with iodine. David woke me up by running into bedroom shouting – Dad, we’re making a movie with Mom. / Pravdoliub Ivanov

Pravdoliub Ivanov, А dream I had on March 24th, 2020, drawing, 29.5 х 21 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Untitled, 2020, video, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Quarantine Selfie, 2020, photography, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Art therapy, 2020, collage, 20 х 15 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Vera and Yana, 2020, drawing, 42 х 29 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Art History in Pandemic Time, 2020, collаge, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Untitled, 2020, drawing, 29.5 х 21 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Untitled, 2020, drawing, 21 х 29 cm, From the series Quarantine, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov, Art History in Pandemic Time, 2020, collаge, From the series Quarantine,, started March 2020

Pravdoliub Ivanov was born in 1964 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He graduated from National Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia in 1993 where he presently is a Chief Assistant – Professor. He lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria and is a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Art –Sofia. Pravdoliub Ivanov has held solo exhibitions in private galleries in Sofia, Plovdiv, Warsaw, Vienna and institutions in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland and New York. He has participated in big international shows such as: 2015: Heaven and Hell, From magic carpets to drones. Villa Empain, Brussels, (Curators: D. Hennebert and C. Dosogne) End Fragment; 2014: Future Past – Past Future, within the framework of the Transmediale, Berlin; 2013: The Unanswered Question, TANAS and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin,; 2012: In Crisis –Terra Mediterranea, The Nicosia Municipal Art Centre, Nicosia; Sport in Art, MOCAK, Krakow, Poland; Beautiful game, City Art Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia; 2011: Within / Beyond Borders – The Collection of the European Investment Bank at the Byzantine & Christian Museum, Athens, Greece; Zwischenlager / Entrepot, Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna; An Elusive Object of Art, Dana Charkasi Gallery, Vienna; Vidéo et après Suspended Spaces #1, Screening at Cinema 1, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; 2010: “Suspended spaces – depuis Famagusta”, Amiens, France; 2009: “Who Killed the Painting?”, works from the Block Collection, Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany 2007: A Place You Have Never Been Before, 52 nd Venice Biennial, Bulgarian Pavilion; 2006: Of Mice and Men, 4th Berlin Biennial. 2005: Sous les ponts, le long de la rivière-2, Luxembourg. 2004: On Reason and Emotion, 14th Sydney Biennial. 2003: In the Gorges of the Balkans, Fridericianum Museum, Kassel, Germany; Blut & Honig, Zukunft ist am Balkan, Essl Collection, Vienna, Austria. 2000: Manifesta 3, Borderline Syndrome, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Pravdoliub’s works have been reproduced in magazines such as Frieze, Flash Art, Kunstforum, Аrtforum etc., as well as in publications such as East Art Map. Sariev Contemporary represents Pravdoliub Ivanov since 2011 and has presented his work at ViennaFair; Istanbul Contemporary; ArtInternational Istanbul; Shanghai Contemporary; Roma Contemporary.
“The works of Pravdoliub Ivanov revolve around moments of spatiality where norms are disrupted and trompe l’oeil effects introduced into an everyday visual vocabulary. Mingling public and private moments makes the artist transfer matters of privacy into the realm of the gallery or art space, thereby including specific architectural tropes. Ivanov plays with moments of irritation, where he uses ironic gestures taken from banal environmental situations to purport a heightened awareness for daily encounters, which often remain unnoticed. The juxtaposition of unusual objects and materials forms the basis for Ivanov’s installations, which mostly produce uncanny moments for the viewers.” (Walter Seidl)

Dimitar Solakov
Let Humanity Tip Over. I Need Fewer Priorities.,2020, project
#sarievselfisolation
5 April –7 April 2020

Things are changing, like they’ve always have in an endless cycle, and humanity still cannot realise just how fragile it is, where its place in this cycle is. So little of what people think and worry about is meaningful. They cling to the superficial, feeding greed, which grows more and more powerful and reckless. The tower of collective greed must topple. Let humanity tip over. I need fewer priorities. / Dimitar Solakov, Voneshta Voda, Bulgaria, March 2020

Dimitar Solakov, Let Humanity Tip Over. I Need, Fewer Priorities., 2020, 3d render

Dimitar Solakov (b. 1987) graduated from the New Bulgarian University in Sofia from the Department of Photography. The artist is mainly using the media of photography and video, although recently he has begun to include drawings and objects in his installations. In his work he is investigating various types of connections – between nature, urbanization and the human placed in the middle; between the past and its interpretations in the present. The works could be either very personal or completely detached from the position of the distanced observer. His works have been shown in numerous international shows some of which are: “SUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement”, 21st Biennale of Sydney (Sydney, Australia), “What is Left”, (Veinna, Austria), “The Pleasures of Love” (Belgrade, Serbia), “The Power of Doubt” Times Museum(Guangzhou, China), Bienal de Cuenca XI (Cuenca, Ecuador), PHotoEspaña (Madrid, Spain), GRID Photographie Biennal (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, “Ritual Of The Habitual” (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), Sofia Contemporary (Sofia, Bulgaria), “All I Can Do Is Art” (Prague, Czech Republic), 56th October Salon (Belgrade, Serbia), “What Is Left?” (Vienna, Austria). He has had one-person shows in: VivacomArtHall (Sofia, Bulgaria), Incubate (Tilburg, The Netherlands), Sariev Contemporary (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), 0gms (Sofia).

Kosta Tonev
#sarievselfisolation
8 April – 10 April 2020

For #sarievselfisolation the artist Kosta Tonev transforms his living room window into a movie screen, which displays subtitles from famous moments in film history. Thus, his everyday life, seen from the position of his neighbors, becomes a mosaic of movie scenes dedicated to the isolation of the individual and the attempt to reenact social interactions.

Kosta Tonev, You talkin’ to me? (Taxi Driver), 2020, 4 photographs, 30 х 30 cm (each), Photographs documenting a series of collages on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “Taxi Driver” (1976).

Kosta Tonev, It’s probably nothing, it’s just a little neighborhood murder (Rear Window), 2020, photography, 30 х 30 cm, a photography documenting a collage on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “Rear Window” (1954).

Kosta Tonev, Best goddamned bartender… (The Shining), 2020, 2 photographs, 30 х 30 cm (each), Photographs documenting a series of collages on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “The Shining” (1980).

Kosta Tonev, You talkin ‘to me? (Taxi Driver), 2020, Video, 30 sec.

Kosta Tonev, Untitled (Rear Window), 2020, Photography

Kosta Tonev, Here’s to 5 miserable months on the wagon and all the irreparable harm that it’s caused me. (The Shining), 2020, Video, 30 sec.

Kosta Tonev, April 8th. Thank God for the rain, which washed away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks (Taxi Driver), 2020, 3 photographs, 30 х 30 cm (each), Photographs documenting a series of collages on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “Taxi Driver” (1976).

Kosta Tonev, That’s no ordinary look. That’s the kind of look a man gives when he is afraid somebody might be watching him (Rear Window), 2020, 3 photographs, 30 х 30 cm (each), Photographs documenting a series of collages on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “Rear Window” (1954).

Kosta Tonev, Here’s to 5 miserable months on the wagon and all the irreparable harm that it’s caused me. (The Shining), 2020, 2 photographs, 30 х 30 cm (each), Photographs documenting a series of collages on the window of the artist’s home. Subtitles from “The Shining” (1980).

Kosta Tonev (1980 Plovdiv, Bulgaria) received a BA from the National Academy of Art in Sofia and an MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His recent solo exhibitions include “EXPO” at Kluckyland in Vienna (2018), “K.” at Pistolet Gallery in Sofia (2015) and “The Heavenly Bodies, Once Thrown Into a Certain Definite Motion, Always Repeat” at GEMAK in The Hague (2013). Amongst others, he has participated in “So Far, So Right: A Study of Reforms and Transitions Across Borders” at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei, Taiwan (2018), “Black Quarry” at Corner College in Zurich (2017), “I and the Others” at Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Salzburg (2014), the “5th Biennial of Young Artists” in Bucharest, “Contemporary Icons” at the Webster University in St. Louis, USA, “Why Duchamp?” at the Museumfor Contemporary Art in Sofia (2012), “ArteCittà” at Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, Italy (2011). Tonev also curated the exhibition “It’s About Time” at the e-flux Time/Bank in The Hague (2013).

My work traces the relationship between the private micro-narrative and the larger political context. Bringing together the traditions of conceptual art with the materiality of classical artistic genres and media, it establishes visual references to recognizable themes related to cinema, museum displays, radio broadcasts, book illustrations etc. I develop my works in series, in which the individual pieces share a common narrative. Often these narratives draw upon history as a source of metaphorical and genealogical interpretations of the present. My aim is to link the personal to the political, and the political to the poetic.
– Kosta Tonev

Rudi Ninov
#sarievselfisolation
11 April – 14 April 2020

“Here’s a few ink drawings on paper from an on going series called (after Charles Mingus Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956). His music is fascinating, sketchy and unpredictable, and has been playing in the background while making drawings on the coffee table at home away from studio. I’ve always thought my studio was a large toolbox, I guess the paintings would be the packed and ready to go toolbox…then the drawings are all the small bolts and nuts that I have to look for, join together, knock into place, polish, only to take apart again.” / Rudi Ninov, Frankfurt, April 2020

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #15 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #24 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #14 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #28 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Yellow
The other day I ran out of yellow ink.
521 Light Yellow.
A shade difficult without the yellow.
Boesner is closed and the next possible
delivery is in a week.
I took a dissolvable vitamin C tablet.
Dropped it in some crimson red ink diluted
with water.
Hoped for the best.
A light orange.
Nothing happened.
A bit of fizz.
A bit of shh.
The vitamin congealed into frothy lumps.
Yeasty yellow.
Mash.
Down the sink.
/ Rudi Ninov, April 2020

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #17 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #16 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #1 ( after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #18, (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #26 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

Rudi Ninov, Untitled #22 (after Charles Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus 1956), 2020, ink on paper, 23 x 30.5cm

For the past three weeks I’ve been thinking about the studio and all the unfinished works that I left hanging on the wall. Four large canvases and a bunch of clay fragments and lumps of coloured paper-mache are waiting for me.
(..just remembered reading an old interview somewhere between Philip Guston and the composer Morton Feldman. At one point Guston had his apartment and studio on opposite sides on the same street. When at home he could peak through the studio window and refered to his paintings as giants and golems, standing patiently in the dark.)

I don’t feel the same way about my paintings.

I’m thinking about my plants and that I have to keep reminding the hausmeister to water them.
At home, we have eight new apple seedlings which Gainy planted a few weeks ago. They slow the pace down in the whole apartment, they feel pink and glimmer in the sunlight.

They always look on the bright side of the window.
I’m still at the coffee table making drawings. I hadn’t made any drawings for while… so right now everything is going fast like Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse.
I’ve always felt incredibly attached to my physical studio and as if now it sits on the top of my head…that’s why everything is going fast….literary every moment I have spent and work I’ve made in studio is recycling in front of my eyes.
…how does a slow shape compared to a fast one look like? Matisse or Krasner? Yellow is a weird colour because it has no speed? Then what are the fast and slow colours? Maybe Alonso knows? Is a continuous shape a form? If the form takes up the whole space, does that make it a field? Then you cut the grass and the form is just an outline? Maybe Alonso also knows about it? Autophagy in shapes? How do you describe iridescence in sound? Pierre Schaeffer? Gorky or Motherwell? I wish the drawings could sound like Charles Mingus and Dhafer Youssef combined Rudi Ninov, April 2020

Rudi Ninov was born in 1992 in Teteven, Bulgaria. He earned a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2015 and is currently continuing his education in the class of Amy Sillman and Nikolas Gambaroff at Städelschule, Frankfurt, Germany.

Among his recent solo exhibitions are: Gravity Works Only When You Look Down, Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, Sofia (2019) and FOTEL, Sotheby’s, Frankfurt am Main (2019). Group exhibitions include: Good Weather, Galeria Ginsberg, Lima, (2020) and The ArtistsCollector’s Dream(a nice thing), Galleria Continua, San Gimignano. He is also the recipient of the Linklaters LLP Prize, Germany (2020) and Cultural Perspectives Foundation Scholarship,
Bulgaria (2019).

“I am a painter who also happens to make sculptures.
I’m interested in the screen like surface of the canvas. The surface is reconfigured, it’s in motion, it’s in time, it slides and changes, it’s adjacent to my body, it’s about colour and formed colours, it’s about negotiation and denial.
I am interested in the sculptural space. I find the medium of ceramics very close to that of painting. Its tactility and weight stretch the cognitive processes of decision making and reflection. Its space is prone to growth and fabrication”

Maria Nalbantova
Brave New Hygiene, 2020
15 April – 17 April 2020

Brave New Hygiene, 2020
We are constantly given advice and instructions about how to wash hands – a major barrier against spreading infections. Using the simplest means of hygiene – the soap, we are protecting both ourselves and our loved ones. We are washing away doubt, problems and danger. Handwashing has become a ritual. The soap is now a field of interpretation regarding both the existence of the community and the issue of how to deal with a crisis. / Maria Nalbantova, Sofia, April 14th, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Malaysian tigress, 2020, 9,3 х 5,5 х 2 сm, soap, water tattoo, acrylic, unique work, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Pureporn, 2020, 8 x 5 x 2 cm, image transfer on soap, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Gold, 2020, 9 x 5,5 x 2,5 cm, soap, gilding, glue, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Palm Beach, 2020, 7,8 х 4,8 х 11 сm, soap, cocktail umbrella, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Pink dreams, 2020, 8,5 x 5 x 2 cm, image transfer on soap, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Bodybuilder, 2020, 8,3 х 5 х 3 сm, image transfer on soap, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Dragon measures, 2020, 9 х 5,5 х 2 сm, soap, water tattoo, acrylic, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Pureporn, 2020, 8 x 5 x 2 cm, image transfer on soap, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova, Gold, 2020, 9 x 5,5 x 2,5 cm, soap, gilding, glue, Part of a series ‘Brave New Hygiene’, 2020

Maria Nalbantova was born in 1990 in Sofia, Bulgaria. She works in the field of contemporary visual arts, experimenting with various media and techniques such as: drawing, collage, found objects, artist book, installation and video She graduated as a Bachelor (2013) and Master (2015) at the National Academy of Arts, Department of Book, Illustration, Printed Graphics. She spend a semester at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain. In October, 2018, she had her first solo show Weather forecast in Vaska Emanouilova Gallery curated by Daniela Radeva as part of the platform for contemporary art and young artist, an ongoing project of Sofia City Art Gallery. Other group presentations include In a State of Movement, Societe Generale Expressbank, Sofia (2017); Art Start, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia (2017); Black Bears for White Days/ White Bears for Black Days within One Design Week, Plovdiv (2016); 15 Minutes of Fame presentation format for young artists of SARIEV Contemporary and Open Arts Foundation (2016); Hip Hip Zine Fair, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia (2015); 22nd International Biennial of Humour and Satire in Art, House of Humour and Satire, Gabrovo (2015); DARK LIGHTS: félin amour, within the Night of Museums and Galleries, Plovdiv (2015) She was nominated for BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, Bulgaria in 2019 and 2020. In 2019 became a finalist for the National Scholarship of Foundation “Cultural Perspectives”. In the beginning of 2020 she was nominated for the 11th Annual Art Award “Stoyan Kambarev” Foundation as a young visual artist. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, forums and competitions in Bulgaria and abroad. Her works “Isobars” and “Lightning” (2018) are part of the collection of the Sofia City Art Gallery.

Michail Michailov
Roaming
April 2020, Vienna
21 April – 23 April

Not that the pursuit of orientation is something new for Michail Michailov. But because of the worldwide COVID-19 shutdown, everyone suddenly loses their bearings and nobody knows how the future will go. New thinking and new ideas are needed. Michailov lands lost and with hope at the same time on his rooftop, roams around and searches for new directions…

Michail Michailov
Roaming
April 2020, Vienna
HD video, 4’25”
camera: Hannes Anderle

Michail Michailov, video still Roaming

Michail Michailov
Roaming
April 2020, Vienna
130x74x10 cm
painted metal

Michail Michailov is born in 1978 in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, living and working in Vienna and Paris. He studied at the Faculty of Visual Arts in Veliko Tarnovo (1999-2004) and Art History at the University of Vienna (2002-2007). From 2006-2009 he was working in cooperation with the Artist Group Gelitin. Besides several residences and awards he got the Drawing Now Paris Art Award 2018 and the Austrian State Scholarship for visual art 2017. Selected exhibitions: VIVRE une exposition de Michel Nuridsany, ICI.gallery, Paris (2018); Extraterrestes, Cabane Georgina, Marseille (2018); Money in the art, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg (2018); BONE 20 performance art festival, Bern (2017); Let them draw II(drawing and withdrawing), Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2017); Images in Language and the Language of Images, Dom Museum, Vienna (2017); You want Truth or Beauty, Kunsthalle Nexus, Salzburg (2017); The Observatory, Special Astrophysical Observatory, KarachayCherkess Republic (2016); The eaten apple, Viennacontemporary, Zone1 (solo, curated), Vienna (2016); The Chicken Thief, Sotheby’s (solo), Vienna (2016); 34. Austrian graphic award, Gallery Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2015); Take off your shoes II, Projektraum Viktor Bucher, (solo),Vienna (2014); The Dignity of Man, The Brno Haus of Arts, Brno (2014); Bulgarian Artists in Vienna. Contemporary Practices at the Beginning of the 21st Century, Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia (2013); Absolut Vienna, Wien Museum, Vienna (2012); living on the edge of a silver future, 5020 Galerie, Salzburg (2011); curated by Jennifer Lacey, Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris (2010); Value point, Hilger Contemporary, Vienna (2009); Austria contemporary, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg (2008); Situation and Spectacle, Paul Klee Centre, Bern (2007).
The artist Michail Michailov uses in his works different artistic media such as performance, drawing, photography, video. In his approach he deals in a playful manner with his own “self” or “I” in relation to his environment/surrondings/situation. Questions about the human presence/being are being asked. Success and failure, self-discovery and self-doubt, the quest for happiness, the transcendence of limits are recurrent topics. In doing so he uses his own name(s) and personality as a metaphor for the existence, the I and the pursuit of individual self-fulfillment in a globalised society. He takes on different cultural phenomena which influence human behavior and questions a striving for perfection society…. – Elsy Lahner, Contemporary Art Curator, Albertina Museum, 2017

Zara Alexandrova
series of drawings after Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale“
25 April – 27 April

“In our life under quarantine suddenly we are granted more time to spend with our families, read books, watch movies etc. It is somehow ironic to imagine that there are homes where reading Margaret Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale“ or streaming the TV series after the book now turns from fiction into reality. This kind of scenario could be specific to a social position of a woman confined to home, whose subsistence relies primarily on a man. But, we can also think of working class women who have to work in order to subsist and who historically have been able to use the workspace as momentary escape from the patriarchy of the household. In times like this “the nostalgia for the present“ no longer applies.” / Zara Alexandrova, April 2020, Berlin

Zara Alexandrova, She Had to Stay at Home (after Margaret Atwood), 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 30×40 cm

Zara Alexandrova, Bondage Bread 8, 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 40×30 cm

Zara Alexandrova, It’s a Girl (after Margaret Atwood), 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 40×30 cm

Zara Alexandrova, Sellout, 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 40×30 cm

Zara Alexandrova, Women’s Shelter 2, 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 40×30 cm

Zara Alexandrova, Bondage Bread 6, 2020, aquarelle, acid-free paper, 40×30 cm

Zara Alexandrova was born 1980 in Stara Zagora. She graduated with a master’s degree in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Since 2014 Zara Alexandrova lives and works in Berlin. She has received several awards for her work, including “Recognition Award” Red Carpet for young art Austria (2014), Geselschafter Art Award in Germany (2009) and the Gaudenz B.Ruf Award for New Bulgarian Art (2007). Nominated for the BAZA Award (2014).
The artist has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions as: Dimensions of Publicness, 24th Gabrovo Biennial of Humour and Satire in Art, Museum of Humour and Satire in Art, Gabrovo, BG (2019); XX Cerveira International Biennial, Vila Plana De Cerveira, PO (2018); Shifting Layers, Young Art at the Museum, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova, Sofia City Art Gallery, BG (2017); Per Anhalter, curated by Julia Brodauf, Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin, DE (2016); Focus Bulgaria, Vienna contemporary, Vienna, AT (2015); Art For Change, curated by Maria Vassileva, Sofia City Art Gallery, BG (2015); International Women’s Day, Artworks from the collection of Slava Nakovska and Nedko Solakov, curated by Iara Boubnova, ICA Gallery, Sofia, BG (2014); Love, curated by Maria Vassileva, Rayko Aleksiev Gallery, Sofia, BG (2012); QUI VIVE?, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Exhibition “Liberty/Freedom”, curated by Darya Kamyshnikova and Sergey Erkov, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, RU (2010).
As a multidisciplinary artist, the creative work of Zara Alexandrova is grounded in an aesthetics of existence in a commercial society. She casts a critical eye on themes like gender identity, fashion trends, political and social relations.

Employing and questioning familiar imagery and narratives that are embedded in the collective cultural imagination, Alexandrova creates new possibilities for interpretation, representing society’s conflicts and taboos with irony and sarcasm

Kalin Serapionov
At the end of the day, 2020, cycle of 6 videos
29 April – 1 May 2020

Exploring the boundaries of what’s possible in a situation of self-isolation, the artist makes “quick drawings” of the people with whom he talked online while in isolation. The medium of the contact with the other determines here the medium of representation of others.
“At the end of the day” presents another type of “drawing” and building an image in digital space. This is drawing on a white screen with sound and words. The author sets up an abstract orientation for the image that he remembers and invites the viewer to build up their own image, while inputting sense and creativity.

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of a Man (#1), April, 2020, Video, sound, 62 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”,2020

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of a Man (# 4), April, 2020, Video, sound, 99 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”, 2020

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of a Woman (#2), April, 2020, Video, sound, 62 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”, 2020

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of an Elder Woman (#5), April, 2020, Video, sound, 115 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”, 2020

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of a Young Woman (#3), April, 2020, Video, sound, 62 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”, 2020

Kalin Serapionov, Drawing of a Man (# 6), April, 2020, Video, sound, 102 sec., Sound Angel Simitchiev, Part of the cycle “At the end of the day”, 2020

Kalin Serapionov was born 1967 in Vratsa, Bulgaria. He leaves and works in Sofia. He graduated from the National Art Academy, Sofia. Since 1998 he is a member of the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia. His works have been exhibited in Hilger Contemparary, Vienna (2004); LCB Depot, Lester, the UK (2008); Neon Campobase, Bologna, Italy (2010); ICA Gallery, Sofia (2013); One Night Stand Gallery, Sofia (2016), Contemporary Space, Varna, Bulgaria (2014, 2016), Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia (2018). He has participated in group exhibitions such as: After the Wall: Art and culture in post-communist Europe, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999); Manifesta 4, Frankfurt/Main (2002); Blood & Honey. Future’s in the Balkans, Essl Collection, Vienna (2003); In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2003); Neither a White Cube nor a Black Box. History in Present Time, Sofia Art Gallery (2006); Heterotopias, 1-st Biennial of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki (2007); Sounds & Visions. Artists’ Films and Videos from Europe, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2009); Techniques, ICA Gallery, Sofia (2009); Indefinite Destinations, DEPO, Istanbul (2010); Site Inspection, Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2011); Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons: Works from the Arteast 2000+ Collection, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); Art for Change, Sofia Art Gallery (2015); Let Them Draw, Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2016); The Image is no Longer Available, Credo Bonum Gallery, Sofia (2017); Forms of Coexistence, Structura Gallery, Sofia (2018).

I work with video and am mainly interested in videoinstallations and the ability of video to generate suspense without sliding into the narrative devices of the cinema. I perceive video as a moving image, correlations, rhythm and light. The relationship of video and videoinstallations with space, the process of turning an image into a
meaning and the effect of visual impact.
My projects are about context, time, locations, circumstances, memory, places and events and their significance. I look into different human relations, characters, habits, behaviour and interconnections, contemporary cities and ways of life. My works is striving to create powerful, high-impact vision that simultaneously make use of the achievements of modern society, but also subject the clichés that they create to critical treatment. – Kalin Serapionov

Stela Vasileva
Series of drawings “Self-Distance”
3 May – 5 May 2020

An ordinary day is no longer so ordinary. Our daily routine too. People adopt new habits and rethink others. In the Self-Distance drawing series, I depict a person who is placed in a situation of forced distance, despite his needs and desires. People on the move, with no apparent purpose and direction. Everything seems normal, but not quite. Only nature remains as an observer, unattainable, as if unaffected, at rest for reflection. / Stella Vasileva, April 2020

Stela Vasileva, Untitled, 2020, paper, mechanical pencil 0.5 mm, red color pencil, 30 x 40 cm, Part of series of drawings Self-Distance, March-April 2002

Stela Vasileva, Untitled, 2020, paper, watercolor, 30 x 40 cm, Part of series of drawings Self-Distance, March-April 2002

Stela Vasileva, Untitled, 2020, paper, mechanical pencil 0.5 mm, red color pencil
30 x 40 cm, Part of series of drawings Self-Distance, March-April 2002

Stela Vasileva, Untitled, 2020, paper, mechanical pencil 0.5 mm, red color pencil, 30 x 40 cm, Part of series of drawings Self-Distance, March-April 2002

Stela Vasileva lives and work in Sofia. She graduated from the Department of Mural Painting at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. Stela Vasileva participated in numerous group exhibitions and projects. Among her solo exhibitions are: “Signs of Sound”, Cultural Center “The Palace” – Balchik (2018/2017), “Tunnel”, metro station Vardar (2017); “Under Construction”, Contemporary Space Gallery, Varna (2015); “5 Boxes”, The fridge, Sofia curated by Yovo Panchev (2015); “Work and Leisure”, UN Cabinet D’amateur, Sofia curated, by Olivier Boissiere (2014); “As A Soup”, Contemporary space, Varna (2013) and Pistolet Gallery, Sofia, curated by Leda Ekimova (2011); “Field” , 0gms ICA, Sofia, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova (2011); “Formal”, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova (2010). Stela Vasileva has participated in group exhibitions including: “Shifting Layers / Young Art at the Museum”, Sofia City Art Gallery, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova (2017); “Polyphonia”, Goethe Institut, Sofia, curated by France Oosterhof (2017); “Process in Progress”, Bäckerstrasse 4, Vienna, curated by Vessela Nozharova (2015); “Focus Bulgaria”, at Viennacontemporary (2015); “Caution: Wet Paint!” Sofia City Art Gallery (2015); “BAZA Award” for Contemporary Art, Sofia City Art Gallery (2015); “Art for Change 1985-2015”, Sofia City Art Gallery, curated by Maria Vassileva (2015); “To be continued…” Collection of Contemporary Bulgarian Art of Gaudenz B. Ruf, Sofia City Art Gallery (2014); “EAST of BEST”, Roodkapje Rot(t)terdam, Holland, curated by Kolektiff (2011)… In 2010 Stela Vasileva won The Gaudenz B. Ruf Award for New Bulgarian Art in the category of young authors; First prize from the International Foundation “St. Cyril and Methodius ” (2009); Nomination for the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, Sofia, (2015/2013); Nomination for the Mtel Contemporary Bulgarian Art Award (2009). She has been awarded artist in residence grants (AIR) in: Cité Internationale des arts, Paris, FR (2014); Krinzinger Projekte, Petomihalyfa, HU (2012); KulturKontakt, Vienna, AT (2012).

It is not important what the functions of things or of their surroundings are, the important thing is the way we see them. Regardless of what they are – photographs, installations, objects or drawings – the works of Stela Vasileva are a quiet way of knowing the world through color, form, rhythm, silhouettes, and reflections. Her works are often related to spaces and objects found where she lives, which she sees or uses – workshops, basketball courts, seamstress’ shops, and children’s playgrounds and so on. Most of her works are drawings. The artist captures momentary movements, figures or things in order to transport them via markers onto the sheet of paper while leaving large white areas empty.
– Vladiya Mihaylova

Voin de Voin
Study of Light, series of works, 2020
6 –8 May 2020

Secret diary / nature diary. The content reminds a mystical-poetic-outlaw transcript of different encounters. The series are an exercise in reduction of the polyphony of possibilities within mechanisms of perception and has a goal to disregard possible narrations. It enters in dialogue with everything that surround us- natural elements like light, sound, vibration passage of time, nature itself. Set in the conjunction of movement and observation, where the spiritual informs the sinful. /Voin de Voin, Solitude Academy Stuttgart,2020

Voin de Voin, Study 1, 2020, photography, 140 x 80 cm, Part of the series Study of Light, 2020

Voin de Voin, Light Study 3, 2020, photography, digital collage, 120 x 80 cm, Part of the series Study of Light

Voin de Voin, Negotiation, 2020, digital photography, 40 x 60 cm, Part of the series Study of Light, 2020

Voin de Voin, Study, 2020, pen drawing on wallpaper, 60 x 60 cm, Part of the series Study of Light

Voin de Voin, Study 3, 2020, photography, digital collage, 120 x 80 cm, Part of the series Study of Light, 2020

Voin de Voin, Study 2, 2020, photography, digital collage, 140 x 80 cm, Part of the series Study of Light

Voin de Voin was born in 1978. He lives and works in Sofia. He holds an MA from DasArts, Amsterdam, and diploma from Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, Goldsmith College,School for New Dance Development, London, EICAR –International School for film and cinema of Paris. Voin de Voin works in various fields of the visual arts, ranging from performance to installation, incorporating his research in collective rituals, psycho-geography, sociology, psychology and new media.
Among his solo shows are “SUR(REAL)RENDER”, Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2018); “How Do You Picture It?”, The Fridge, Sofia (2016); “Disconnecting Intergod”, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia (2015); “ἀ-μετά-καλύπτω,” Sariev Project Space, Plovdiv (2015); “33° North – 33° East”, Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2012); “Retrofuturo”, France fiction gallery, Paris (2012). Group exhibitions and projects include “Thought for Food”, WILD GALLERY, Brussels (2014); “Doubt, Connection, Sufferance, Aisthesis, Eros”, ArtInternational, Istanbul (2014); “Contemporary Modifications”, Espace Wallonie, Brussels (2014); “Moon Voyage 36” (as curator), The Fridge, Sofia (2014); “Bulgarische Arbeit”, geh8 Kunstraum & Ateliers e.V., Dresden (2014); “Аnn and the Giant Appel”, lecture performance, De Appel Institute for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam (2014); “Let’s Twist and Cross”, Gallery Bertrand Jordan, Paris (2014); “My Friend, the Artist”, Coexistences Art Space, St. Petersburg (2014); Sofia Queer Forum 2014 – “Manifestations of the Personal”, Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, Sofia; “120 Minutes to Paradise”, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK), Berlin (2013); “If Not, Tomorrow”, Artitude V.E., Berlin (2013); ParaDice, Kunstverein Ausgburg (2012); “Radical Languages” (curators: Maaike Gouwenberg & Joanna Zielińska), Cricoteka Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, Krakow (2012); “Round Robin” (performance, part of Critical Art Ensemble Program), dOCUMENTA (13), (2012); Sofia Queer Forum 2012 – “The Creation of Myth”, Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art, Sofia; “Poor but Sexy”, Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2011); “Ai Wei Wei is in China”, Тhe Bunker, Berlin (2011); “Presence is the Artist”, Berlin (2011); “Holly Shit”, PSM Gallery, Berlin (2010); “Dr. Strangelove” (installation/performance), Batiment d’art contemporain (BAC), Geneve (2010). He has also participated and shown in numerous international art institutions and events such as Documenta 14, Athens (2017) (off space); Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016); Venice Biennale 2015 (off programme); Melbourne International Art Festival (2009); MoМА, New York (2007); Hetveem Theatre, Amsterdam; Tanja Leighton Gallery, Berlin; France Fiction Gallery, Paris; Kunstverein Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe; MuseumCartier, Vienna; Living Art Museum, Iceland; Atelier de Vertus, Paris / Berlin; Szene Art Lab, Brussels; Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair; and De Appel Art Centre, Amsterdam. He is also a freelancer in the field of organizing and curating events and exhibitions: ÆTHER programmation; Nordic Biennale (Doma arts Fest, 2015); Manisensations, Leap gallery Berlin; Dutch fashion Biennale Performance programme, Arnhemand others. Voin de Voin is the recipient of awards fromthe Mondrian Fondation for Visual Arts, Amsterdam(2008) and Das Arts Stichting for the Arts (2006-2008). Since July 2016 he is running an independent art space in Sofia called ÆTHER. Since 2018 a sibling space Æther Haga in the Netherlands, together with Marie Civikov. He is the initiator of Sofia Art Week SAW, since 2018. Currently Voin is a fellow at Solitude Akademie Stuttgart, with whom Æther will partner for the next couple of years in exchange fellowship program for artists exchange between the two countries together with Swimming pool and Radar Sofia. Voin de Voin is represented by Sariev Contemporary since 2011.
Voin de Voin’s videos and performances examine the high demands on the performativity of our lives. They mixelements of social and psychological analysis of systematic society designs with its irrational manifestations.The events are accompanied by the entire symbolic apparatus that sometimes has precise meanings, butother times has more independent and aesthetic qualities and it is composed from individual tastes of theirparticipants. – Edith Jerabkova

Iana Boukova
Fears leading to insanity (excerpt) 2017 – 2020
Страхове, водещи до полудяване (откъс) 2017 -2020
9 – 11 May 2020

There are topics where it is a symptom the very fact that they are called “current”. Victorians are said to have talked about death all the time, but never about sex. Like Victorians with a reverse sign, we constantly talk about sex, never about death. “Fears leading to insanity” is a poetic project based on “found text” and exploring the inability of the modern person to approach the subject of their mortality. From the shamanic jargon of medicine through the mourning kitsch to the inexhaustible pataphysics of the popular media, language proves to be both powerless and aggressive, macabrely comical in every attempt to utter the fact of dying. Madness takes the place of metaphysics. “I don’t need to say anything. I’m just showing” says Benjamin. The fragments used have been collected by the Web in recent years from a variety of sources: stories in the news, forensic reports, posts in groups and discussion forums, advertisements of funeral homes, dictionary entries, Google search results etc. The text has not been changed, only in some places the lines are cut to resemble verse form. Original spelling is preserved. / Iana Boukova, April 2020

Съществуват теми, при които е симптом самият факт да бъдат наречени “актуални”. За викторианците се казва, че постоянно говорели за смъртта, но никога за секс. Подобно на викторианци с обратен знак, ние постоянно говорим за секс, никога за смърт.
“Страхове,водещи до полудяване” е поетичен проект, базиран на “готов” и “намерен” текст и изследващ неспособността на съвременния човек да доближи темата за своята смъртност. От шаманския жаргон на медицината през траурния кич до неизчерпаемата патафизика на популярните медии езикът се оказва едновременно безпомощен и агресивен, макабрено комичен във всеки опит да произнесе факта на умирането. Лудостта заема мястото на метафизиката. „Няма нужда да казвам каквото и да било. Просто показвам“, твърди Бенямин.
Използваните фрагменти са събирани от Мрежата през последните години от разнородни източници: вестникарски съобщения, доклади по съдебна медицина, изказвания в групи и форуми, рекламни материали на погребални бюра, речникови статии, резултати от Гугъл търсачки. Текстът не е променян, единствено на места редовете са насечени, така че да добият „стихотворна” форма. Запазен е автентичният правопис. / Яна Букова, Април 2020г.

*texts – available in Bulgarian only
може да прочетете всички текстове от поемата в този линк

Iana Boukova, Fears leading to insanity (excerpt) 2017 – 2020