Ruja Marinska
CONSONANT AND DISSONANT
Nine Studies in Contemplation
The present exhibition comes as an answer to an invitation, and an attempt
to face a challenge, which actually constitutes the rationale behind
this Third Edition of “August in Varna” event. To expose
side-by-side works of art from the past couple of years and classic
works of art has been an incredibly tempting, almost heuristic task.
The very idea to select the artists and construct an artistic pair has
been marked by its own history and abounds in sudden turns. Sometimes,
it was the classic work that made me choose its modern counterpart but
in most cases it was the contemporary artist and his/her latest works
that had sent me in search for a predecessor. What I have actually been
looking for in everyone’s works was authenticity and meaning.
Among the new names, I was specifically looking for very recent arrivals,
not yet misused by the media. As for the works by well-known artists,
I decided to opt for those that I thought conceptually justified. In
all my efforts, my motif had always been to prove that a single work
of art could stand for the whole world.
I also wanted to challenge others to think along the same lines and
to discover layers, aspects and nuances; and to teach them to interpret
the nucleus of imagery. I had deliberately disregarded usual parameters
such as parallels in style or iconographic likeness. What I had been
aiming at was to achieve, together with everyone else, something more
precious and significant, namely the essence. As each pair naturally
exhibited artistic differences, the dominant element in presenting them
as a pair was also different.
Such an approach is of course highly vulnerable and contesting it is
also part of the game.
The important thing is to try and gain insight into the understanding
that it is the world of the painting that is infinite.
BORIS GEORGIEV (1888-1962) AND SVETOZAR BENCHEV
(1962)
Art renouncing colour for the very essence of things. The supremacy
of the line, Leonardo is quoted to have said, tempts the mind. Transcedental
attraction and full dedication to meditation on the mystery of human
fate, here on earth and yonder...
It is on this plane that the affinity is clearly manifested between
Boris Georgiev, an artist indelibly marked by symbolism of the beginning
of the 20c and Svetozar Benchev whose works have mostly been created
at the dawn of the 21c. As usual, when flesh melts away it is the spiritual
that spreads out in intangible abundance of vibrations.
GEORGI MASHEV (1887-1946) AND SVILEN BLAZHEV (1953)
Both probe deep into past, tradition and mythology in their search
for subjects, strength and insights. While Mashev opts for the grotesque
and the surreal, even diabolical, and in his individualist mentality
shuns Christian revelations and plunges into the vortex of paganism,
Blazhev mostly paints The Temple and its holy images. One of his most
recent works, “St. Demetrios of Saloniki” bathes in the
radiance of an old fresco. I wonder what gives him the freedom to overcome
the tensions of the ego.
IVAN MILEV (1897-1927) AND IVAN MILEV (1957)
It is quite a job to be a namesake of one of the most popular Bulgarian
painters ever. It needs the courage of keeping cool and speaking in
your own voice. This done, it suddenly dawns upon everyone that both
Ivan Milevs are actually bound by something significant, namely the
refusal to imitate nature while seeking for its synthetic shapes in
their works. This bond finds a natural parallel in the main difference
between the Ivan Milev who delighted in Art Nouveau and reached an exquisite
decorative flatness through his tempera techniques, and our contemporary
Ivan Milev whose landscapes feel as heavy as earth itself.
NIKOLA AVRAMOV (1897-1945) AND DIMITAR HINKOV
(1972)
The first has always been known in the history of Bulgarian art for
his exquisitely tangible Still Life paintings. The second would be recognized
by his ability to have produced, despite his uncontrollable temperament,
his own Still Life series. But it is not genre, or subject, that links
both artists even though both allow for this link to stand out. Rather,
what has made me think of them as a pair was their sensitivity to matter
and their shared skill in tackling their subjects and interpreting them
through their inimitable artistic means.
IVAN NENOV (1902-1997) AND VESSELIN NACHEV (1958)
For those whose privilege it has been to know him, Ivan Nenov was the
intellectual artist whose special gift was his ablility to analyze visual
works of art. It was Ivan Nenov that taught us to use the term “plastic
arts”, building on the lessons of European modernism on artistic
conventionality and creation of volumes and space. Vesselin Nachev,
on the other hand, makes us think of spontaneity when we contemplate
his works. Yet I believe this is a deceptive feeling for, attracted
by his exquisite artistic talent, we are quick to recognize the indestructible
logic hidden in the texture of his works.
BENCHO OBRESHKOV (1899-1970) AND EDMOND DEMIRDJIYAN
(1951)
Bencho Obreshkov is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating masters
of colour in 20c. Bulgarian art. The entire range of his works, from
his earliest to his latest, proves that he has been capable of teaching
us all we would want to know about colour while creating his own pure
and sonorous colours which somehow seemed to have appeared on the canvas
of their own will and with no effort at all. On his part Edmond Demirdjiyan,
an exceptionally vital artist reveling in the elements of colour and
rhythm, seems to be a more contemporary version of the born artist.
A comparison of both artists will show that they share a taste for strange
subjects and visual configuration.
LUBOMIR DALCHEV (1902-2002) AND NIKOLAY MAYSTOROV
(1943)
Rumour has it that, in the last years of his life in USA our great
sculptor has reverted to painting, the love of his younger years. I
was reminded of Dalchev’s early “Piety” by the latest
works by Nikolay Maystorov in the “Genesis” Series. Evil
and Good, Light and Darkness in eternal struggle against the background
of heart-rending dramatic awareness that no outcome is at all possible.
Both artists find a deep existential rationale in their use of biblical
subjects, a fact that renders a deeply humane aspect to the contents
of Bulgarian art.
ZLATYU BOYADJIEV (1903-1976) AND YVA YARANOVA (1977)
Yva Yaranova is my latest discovery. Her recent exhibition has confirmed
that her artistic instincts have not been stunted by her intellectual
inheritance. What specifically attracted my attention was her inimitable
surrealistic ability to tackle the difficult and strange subject of
duplicity, making it a recurrent motif in her paintings. While I was
contemplating it, I suddenly remembered Zlatyu Boyadjiev’s “Grandmother
and Grandchild” where duplicity has been so strongly and complicatedly
coded. That made me construct a pair of the old master and the young
disciple despite the fact that, where Zlatyu Boyadjiev eventually finds
peace, Yva lets blood run in her attempt to reveal duplicity in any
apparent unity.
IVAN LAZAROV (1889-1952) AND BOZHIDAR BONCHEV (1956)
As an outstanding representative of the art of sculpture in Bulgaria,
and a skilful interpreter of its language, Ivan Lazarov has been known
for his passion for ceramics. Most of his ideas have been materialized
in majolica. Bozhidar Bonchev, a leading name in modern ceramics, is
determined to erase the border between ceramics and sculpture. The exhibited
works are typical for post-modern sculpture. Despite their thematic
dissonance, I believe that a meeting of these two outstanding sculptors
is quite possible in the context of the present exhibition.