The educational platform Introduction to Contemporary Art, a project by the Open Arts Foundation and SARIEV Contemporary, continues in Sofia this year as well. For its sixt edition the platform starts the new format Walk & Talk with the artist Luchezar Boyadjiev. It continues its edutional strategy for creating knowledge and awareness for contemporary art and the new format offers a new approach for active involvement of the audience and for connecting art and public space and putting them in a broader context.
In May, June, September and October 4 walk & talks will take place. Each one of them will have their own concepts, topcis and routes at various locations in Sofia – public places, monuments, galleries and museums. Target groups are people interested in contemporary art, no background knowledge or exprerience required.
Because of the limited participants number (15), a registration via email is mandatory. All interested should register at assistant@openarts.info including following information: name, profession, phone number and short motivation. Follow our Facebook page for up-to-date information about the deadline for registration.
One of the main goals of the education platform Introduction to Contemporary Art is to be open and to offer free access to art for everybody. Because of this all tours will be detailed documented and all video and photo materials will be published on our website.
Each walk in the city is like a drawing in a public space – “make” lines on the boulevards, take shots in Instagram and Sketch Guru in aquarelle or pastel colors or just collecting impressions of people, building, monuments, ads or other bunch of things. Paul Klee, one of the most important artist in 20th century, says that drawing for him is like “taking a line for a walk”. For the apache indian tribe from North America crossing, no matter if it is really or mentally, through particular places of the tribe`s territory is not only recalling of their names – each place is a “nest” of knowledge, each place “holds” a history, culture and wisdom of the tribe. The story of the place is a story of the tribe; crossing through places is a crossing through the cultural “body” of the tribe; the place is not only a part of the landscape but a “container” of the tribe`s identity – from the language to the visual associations and views.
In those walks in Sofia we will try to combine the city and the art, the visual surrounding and the layers of city history and culture, the contemporary art and museum of classical samples, the monument and the billboard – we will try to observe and talk about the living in the city as we draw with our eyes, bodies and words in the space and with the “material” that Sofia provides us.
They say that the art today is urban and cosmopolitan phenomenon. Then – is there a better way to “experience” it than a walk in the city with wide open eyes?
Each of the four walks will have different theme and route. Considered are both central and peripheral locations in Sofia. “Stops” on the way will be both outdoors – squares, monuments, buildings, views and indoors – galleries, museums, studios. The places will be as familiar to everyone – you will see them in a new way and unknown – you’ll find them together. Each walk has its own theme, but in all it is crossed the problem of urban living, history and culture in relation to the practices of contemporary visual arts (… from the monument to the display of your smartphone). For example – the celebrity and the ordinary citizen in the space of the city; the features of body behavior of the Sofia resident and practices of performance art; material and immaterial visual media – intuitions about visual ecology and political urbanism; the city as a machine, public spaces as urban interface and resident of the city as an object that creates the city, but is created by the city.
Luchezar Boyadjiev
FIRST WALK AND TALK, MAY 14 (registration until May 11)
The first walk topic will be focus upon celebrities and ordinary citizens in the space of the city. It will start with how the city is a common place for everyone, but each resident has their own city "mapping"; how common places do not always mean shared memories; we will go through scandalous places and things; we will try new sidewalks and parking lots selected and old streets and parks to play. We will finish with an artist in the exhibition environment and strange visions of the world today.
SECOND WALK AND TALK, JUNE 11 (registration until June 8 )
Some of the thematic emphases will be - bodies in the city, the man in action and the formation of cultural heritage - how to be present in the urban environment and how the museums are formed, what is the relationship between man and heritage and how it is interpreted, recreated and redefined in the modern art. Route: from the square in front of "St. Sunday" church and underpass of "St. Petka of the Saddlers" church to Dianabad quarter and courtyard of the Museum of Socialist Art.
WALK AND TALK, SEPTEMBER 10 (registration until September 7)
"From elevation '0' of the city to elevation '0' of the artist."
What makes the city "yours" are your routes, memories, projections, markers, places and other elevations. For example an elevation could be - a first kiss or a meeting, a party, a wedding / a divorce; an elevation - the place of the first office, studio, arrest or protest; elevation - fortunately or unfortunately, smile or tear, success or failure; elevation - the sound of the former zoo, the smell of roasted peppers in September, the place to play football or chasing with stray dogs, etc. The city is built from the "elevations" of life (and perhaps - art) and not only by the elevation of planning, or archeology. -
WALK AND TALK, OCTOBER 22 (registration until October 20)
“The museum through the “window” of the city.” This time the tour of the city will be indoors – namely Museum Square 500. Participants will see the museum and its collection as seen by Lachezar Boyadzhiev who will speak about city based on specific works.
What is contemporary and con-temporarily?
What is the “image of Time”, which suggests a museum?
What is “exhibition” in the city compared to exhibition in the museum?
Why the city and the museum can not live without each other?
Why Sofia is not Skopje, and never will be, although those who “invest in identity” would really want that?
Why Square 500 is not the Louvre and never will be?
Why introduction to con-temporary art really is up to you?
Incidentally mentioned will be also:
- the inside out of the space;
- city and village;
- religion and bohemia;
- ideology and form;
- artists and sisters-in-law;
- photography and sculpture;
- painting and today.
Luchezar Boyadzhiev (1957, Sofia). Visual artist. Works with personal interpretations of social processes in urban visuality and interventions in public space. Makes installations, photographs, objects and drawings, video and performative lectures. Such projects implemented in Plovdiv in September 2014 for the Night of Museums; in Sofia in June 2013 for project West Park - art in public spaces; in Jerusalem in August 2008 within The Jerusalem Show 0.1 - art in the urban environment; Singapore, Ljubljana, Kassel, Santa Fe, Belgrade, Sharjah and many others. His works have been presented in: "Puff up and hold!", One Night Stand, Sofia (2014, solo); "Not a Library Artist either", SALT Galata, Istanbul (2013, solo); "Artist in landfill" Gallery, Sofia (2010, solo); "Mature and Angry", Ancient Bath - CCA, Plovdiv, Bulgaria; "TheGrammar of Freedom: Five Lessons", GARAGE MCA, Moscow and "Art for Change 1985-2015", Sofia City Gallery, Sofia (2015); "Disconsent", Ancient Bath - CCA, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2014); "Economics in Art", MOCAK, Cracow (2013); "The Best of Times, the Worst of Times", 1stBiennial, Kiev and "The Eye Never Sees itself", 2nd Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2012); "The Global Contemporary", ZKM, Karlsruhe (2011); 2010 - "Thank You for Your Understanding", 2nd Biennial, Antakya; "The Fate of Irony", KAI 10, Düsseldorf; "Beyond Credit", Antrepo 5, Istanbul; "Wealth of Nations", Spike Island, Bristol; 2009 - "Common History and its Private Stories", MUSA, Vienna; "LiquidFrontiers", Lille; 2008 - "Art, Price and Value", Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; "Wonder", 2nd Biennial, Singapore; "The Jerusalem Show", Al-Ma'mal, Jerusalem; "Lucky Number Seven", the 7th Biennial SITE, Santa Fe, USA; 2007 - "Footnotes: on Geopolitics, Markets andAmnesia", 2nd Biennial, Moscow; "5 Views to Mecca", Feinkost, Berlin (solo). Founding member of ICA-Sofia.
"Introduction to Contemporary Art" is a project of the Open Arts foundation and gallery SARIEV Contemporary. The "Introduction to Contemporary Art" 2016 - Sofia is supported by the Capital program "Culture" of Sofia Municipality for 2016.
With the support of The Gaudenz B. Ruf Award
Partner: National Art Gallery
Media partners: View!Sofia, 8 Magazine, Timeart.me, Stand.bg, artnewscafé bulletin