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.