• Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporar y Ar t • 8 March – 1 April 2012, opening March 8, 6 pm• Curator: Maria Vassileva Artists: Adelina Popnedeleva, Alla Georgieva, Bora Petkova, HR-Stamenov, Ivan Moudov, Kiril Prashkov, Krassimir Terziev, Kosta Tonev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Mina Minov, Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova, Nestor Kovachev, Nina Kovacheva, Peter Tzanev, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Rada Boukova, Samuil Stoyanov, Sasho Stoitzov, Stefan Nikolaev, Stefania Batoeva, Valentin Stefanoff, Valio Tchenkov, Vassil Simittchiev, Vikenti Komitski, Vladimir Ivanov
Pravdoliub Ivanov. Untitled (Curly Brush), 2009
Marcel Duchamp had an ambiguous attitude to exhibitions and museums1. He never had a one-artist show and participated in few group shows. He took on curating and designing several shows of the Surrealists. As the founder of the Société Anonyme, Inc. he was responsible for many others. For his project “Boîte-en-valise” Duchamp made scale models of 69 of his works in an edition of 350. Since the beginning of the 1960’s numerous retrospectives of Duchamp’s works were organized in Europe and the USA. He conceded to the production of replicas of his ready-mades and these are now in a lot of museums. Such a practice of both participation and withdrawal prescribes a variety of interpretative possibilities. Just like his works Duchamp’s worldly gestures are at the same time simple and full of meanings. Each “transfer” into a concrete context seems to simplify the problem. At the same time we are tempted to make such transfers all the time. We are using the 125 anniversary of Duchamp’s birth in order to once again discuss with him and about him. When in 2003 Ivan Moudov started compiling his collection of “Fragments” it was impossible not to associate this work with either Duchamp or the non-existent museum of contemporary art – fragments of art works arranged in boxes that look like suitcases… Naturally, the differences are obvious as well. By making copies of his own works Duchamp is diluting the notion of the original. That is a provocative challenge for the existing museums. Moudov insists on the originality of the work, though fragmented, as a substitute of the missing museum. The dialogue with Duchamp in Bulgaria started long before this exhibition and it involves the subject of the museum as well.
Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova. Figaro, 2012
“All exhibitions of painting or sculpture make me ill. And I’d rather not be involved in them.” Quoted after: Elena Filipovic. A Museum That is Not, e-flux journal, #4, 2009/3 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-museum-that-is-not/ 2 In 1993 the exhibition “Object Bulgarian Style” was organized by the Club of (eternally) Young Artists. 6 Shipka St. Gallery, Sofia, Curators: Iara Boubnova, Maria Vassileva, Diana Popova. 1
Stefan Nikolaev. Candélabre, 2010
Courtesy the artist and Gallery Michel Rein, Paris. „Holy Spirit Rain Down”, 2010, Les Eglises, Contemporary art center, Chelles, France
Samuil Stoyanov. Large small glass, 2012
That is why the project “Why Duchamp?” belongs here – in the half-finished as a building but not quite existing as a museum institution new space. This is where we have to ask – when does contemporaneity start for us from the point of view of today? Are there the notions of “here” and “there” in the logic of such a countdown? Is Duchamp the dividing threshold (for Kosta Tonev artists are only those who have heard of Duchamp)? Are there any fields left unexplored but suggested by Duchamp? What is art? What is the difference between an original and a copy? Is there art without institutions? Ultimately – what kind of a museum do we need? The debate on such issues, as seen through the prism of Duchamp’s legacy, started long before the intention to have such a museum was even “born” here – from Luchezar Boyadjiev’s “Simultaneous séance on 9 chess boards. Homage to Marcel Duchamp” (1995) to the cycle “Natural Modernism” (2004) by Kiril Prashkov. There is a necessity to expand the debate through both art works and texts. The participating artists were asked to answer – “Why Duchamp?” We wanted to focus on the personal attitudes as opposed to the uniformed use of the Duchamp label. Today the reference to his name is often routine and sometimes a simplistic assumption. I was surprised by the answer given by Sasho Stoitzov: “The radical thinking of Duchamp had a direct influence in Bulgaria at the end of the 1980’s. The ‘ready-made’ works were the strongest challenge presented to the formalism of the imposed notions of ‘plasticity’ in art”. I doubt however that at the end of the 1980’s in Bulgaria there were all that many people who had even heard of the name Marcel Duchamp. It is a fact though that the transformation of visual arts here did go through the purifying power of the found object. In the beginning there were the objects related to the old traditional Bulgarian folklore way of life – wheel from horse driven carriages, wooden fences, shovels and pitchforks. They had a potential for ritualistic refusal of worn-out formulas and a return to unpolluted sources. The chronology of contemporary Bulgarian art is full of ‘ready-mades’2. I suspect that happened unconsciously. The Duchamp ‘bug’ caught on with us… Duchamp has influenced generations of artists – in a hard to define way but forcefully and lastingly. He was a combination of contradictory elements – responsible and negligent, precise and absent, consistent and compromising. Maybe that is why there is not one single text on his work that would exhaust the subject. There is always something more to say. We are offering here more statements on this elusive figure. The works in the show demonstrate a parallel of diversity and contradiction – they in turn adore, repeat, analyze, comment, and reject. Some works remain within Duchamp’s aesthetics; others are referencing it while insisting on its ethical legacy. We get a narrative in result – from the urinal to the water fountain, and from the object to the museum. Maria Vassileva
Kiril Prashkov Natural Bicycle Wheel, 2004
Luchezar Boyadjiev. Descending Body, 2012