Along with programs by now that become a tradition such as Museum and Galleries, Culture and Club, City and Public Spaces and The Little Night, Night/Plovdiv is starting a special curatorial program that is a continuation of projects from previous years such as Rituals of the Habitual (2012, curator Vera Mlechevska) and The Dark Side of the Night (2014, curatorial collective from the Art Affairs and Documents Foundation).
The program’s main goal is to present different perspectives on contemporary art and to provide a free space for experiments and new ideas in the specific context of the Night – time limitations to one or two evenings, its many thousands audience and dynamic atmosphere.
The program’s first edition will include four projects by curators Aaron Moulton (Los Angeles), Emile Ouroumov (Paris), Vladiya Mihaylova (Sofia) and Stefka Tsaneva (Plovdiv). The four projects will take place in locations from the Alternative Map of Plovdiv (a project of The Open Arts Foundation).
AMERICANAESOTERICA
Curated by Aaron Moulton
Artists: Mike Bouchet, Jason Metcalf, Sterling Ruby, Max Hooper Schneider, Jen West
Exhibition Venues: Sariev Gallery, Kosmos Cinema, Otets Paisiy Str., various secret locations throughout city
September 11 – October 30, 2015
AMERICANAESOTERICA is a presentation of artists from California whose artistic practices employ aspects of ritual, superstition, alchemy and magic. The exhibition takes the form of a conspiracy theory as a way to explore esoteric tendencies in contemporary art. Produced on the occasion of Museum Night Plovdiv 2015, the exhibition occurs both within the white cube of Sariev Gallery with public art interventions dispersing throughout the city of Plovdiv.
The exhibition is kindly supported by the U.S. Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Additional support was generously provided by Alex Marshall, Mihail Lari and Scott Murray, James Lindon, Peres Projects, Diliana and Spas Roussev, Sam and Diane Stewart, Cynthia Schwartz and Robyn Siegel, Linda and Kriegh Moulton, Mette and Asger Moulton.
The project was kindly supported by the US Embassy in Bulgariа.
THE DEEP WAR
Curated by Emile Ouroumov
Artist: Maxime Bondu
Location: 36 Otets Paisiy Str.
Date, time: 11 and 12 September, 7 p.m. – 01 a.m.
The Deep War is a computer experiment made with the technologist Julien Griffit. Two Artificial Intelligences, working autonomously, are fighting on a chess board. Knowing only the rules at first, with no databases, the A.I evolves and grows up aggregating experience in relation with the memory structure. A window is open to an unpredictable and intuitive behavior. During their existence, each different because of the first match (one in defense and the other in attack), they create their own databases. The learning abilities place the experiment in a large scale of time where can pop up large possibilities. Imagined as echo to the famous game Deep Blue vs Kasparov in 1996, where for the first time a super-computer were able to beat a Grand Chess Master, the piece questions the idea of the awakening to consciousness and spirit of the machine.
The project was kindly supported by Istitut Francais de Bulgarie.
HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN
Curated by Vladiya Mihaylova
Participants: Fanni Futterknecht (artist) and Ursula Probst (curator, artist)
Location: Lotus Hall, 34 Hristo G. Danov St.
Dates, time: September 11, solo performance “A Soft Gesture” by Fanni Futterknecht with live sound by Angel Simitchiev, 9:00 p.m. to 9:25 p.m., 11:00 p.m. to 11:25 pm
September 12, 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 pm. – conversation with the artist Fanni Futterknecht and the curator Ursula Probst on the contemporary situation and the human condition.
The “Soft Gesture” is a solo performance, part of the larger piece “This is not a Romantic Project” that deals with the nature of emotions and the way they influence the perception. Happiness, anger, confidence, love, anxiety – the entire spectrum of emotion is seen as a system through which I (the subject) establish a connection with the other person or other things outside self. In the center there is contemporary human being who is at a distance both from the world and him/herself and whose numbness is embodied in the artificial plastic and rather virtual environment. The surrounding is filled with objects and circumstances that are not always understandable and may seem close or distant, threatening or attractive, but also fragile and vulnerable like the subject itself.
The reflection on contemporary situation and the human condition will continue also during the second night of the Night, on 12.09., from 8 to 9 pm, when together with the artist and the curator from Austria – Ursula Probst, there was a discussion on Fanni Futterknecht’s works as well as on other performances and artists, who deal with similar issues in their works.
The project is kindly supported by the Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria
STILL HERE. AT THE ARCHIPELAGO OF THE METEORITES
Curator: Stefka Tsaneva
Location: Youth House, Ballet hall, St. Avksentij Veleshki № 20
Artists: Ani Vasseva, Georgi Sharov, Boyan Manchev and Leonid Yovchev
Date, time: 11 and 12 September, 7:00 p.m. – 01:00 a.m.
Ani Vasseva, Georgi Sharov, Boyan Manchev and Leonid Yovchev from Metheor put their theatrical practice to an extreme shock (typical of them) depriving it of physical presence and transforming it into a multidimensional and polyphonic landscape. The change in physical state is accomplished with no loss of energy. The excessive rhythms, demonic stubbornness in the search for unimaginable techniques of thought, language and bodies that define Metheor’s work are “still here” in the space of the archipelago of meteorites populated by fantastic forms.