Nedko Solakov
dal 10/7/2009 al 31/10/2009
Segnalato da
10/7/2009
Nedko Solakov
Institut Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt
Emotions (without masks). The bad news: There will be no "Emotions" show at the museum. The works stay packed in their crates somewhere in the dark corners of the exhibition space. The good news: Solakov has realized a totally new installation instead which is the largest in his oeuvre so far. He has created a total artwork that alternates between dream and reality, challenging our view of art and life with absurd micro-stories and tragicomic thought impulses.
Curated by Ralf Beil
After Kunstmuseum Bonn and Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt should have been the third venue of the extensive solo show "Emotions". But it all turned out very different.
The bad news: There will be no "Emotions" show at Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt. The works
stay packed in their crates somewhere in the dark corners of the exhibition space. The good
news: Nedko Solakov has realized a totally new installation instead which is the largest in his
oeuvre so far.
"At Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Nedko Solakov has used all his talents for a special kind of
‘friendly takeover’", says Director Dr. Ralf Beil, explaining the exhibition concept. The total
installation "Emotions (without masks)" is arranged over the complex, dramatically
illuminated exhibition architecture of the previous exhibition "Masks. Metamorphoses of the
Face": "Thus a new butterfly of art with its own individual coloring unexpectedly emerges
from the discarded cocoon of the past masks exhibition."
"Emotions (without masks)" – this means the feelings to which Solakov openly gives free
reign here as well as the unmasked museum in the double sense: the empty space of the
previous exhibition, in which Solakov’s devilish and cheerful masquerades now take place.
Tiny figures and handwritten notations populate the empty spaces. Nedko Solakov has
created a total artwork that alternates between dream and reality, challenging our view of art
and life with absurd micro-stories and tragicomic thought impulses.
From July 12 until November 1, 2009 the Mathildenhöhe Darrmstadt thus hosts one of the
strangest and most fascinating projects in contemporary art this summer. The public can
follow the artist’s traces in both Mathildenhöhe’s historical exhibition building and the water
reservoir below. The "Emotions (without masks)" show crowns Solakov’s major exhibition
tour, organized by Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt together with the Kunstmuseum Bonn
and the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen.
Further information on the artist’s work
Having started by studying mural painting at the Academy of Art in Sofia, Nedko Solakov
has developed in the last 25 years an oeuvre which is as humorous as it is playful, and as
biting as it is melancholic, an oeuvre that fundamentally questions the validity of every
system of representation.
Across the diverse forms of his work, Solakov aims for an encyclopedia of the absurd and
outlandish, a history of deviations, differences, embarrassments and failed utopias. The
collapse of the communist system in the late 1980s proves to be a shaping experience and
at the same time signals the start of the search for a new, personal language, which can be
used to adequately express the complexity and fragility of reality. "Top Secret" (1989/90),
consisting of an index box, filled with a series of cards detailing the artist’s youthful
collaboration with the Bulgarian state security, impressively highlights the artist’s technique,
which is both provocative and undermines every certainty. His drawings, essays, videos,
photographs, performances, installations, sculptures and murals scratch at the paint of
apparent collective truths, question the conditions of the art system and market ("A (not so)
White Cube", 2001 / "Leftovers", 2005), reflect on failure as a metaphor for human existence
by openly stating the artist’s own fears ("Fear", 2002/03 / "Fears", 2006/07) and in the ways
of politics discover paradox as a dominating structure ("Announcement", 1999 / "Discussion
(Property)", 2007). Solakov’s ability to tell all of these different topics in the form of stories,
that maintain a precise balance between a poetic, rhapsodic enjoyment in narration and
continuous, ironic interruptions, makes this work not only completely unmistakable, but also
extremely entertaining and humorous.
The "Emotions" book accompanying the exhibition, published by Hatje Cantz Verlag,
contains essays by Ralf Beil, Stephan Berg, Konrad Bitterli, Georgi Gospodinov and Nedko
Solakov. Bound, 224 pages, 196 illustrations, 19.7 x 26.7 cm. Priced € 30 at the exhibition
and € 34 in shops.
The large program of events, lectures, educational days and film screenings is available on the website of the Institut Mathildenhöhe
There will soon be a film about the show available on the website
http://www.nedkosolakov.net
Press contact:
Gwendolin Ross and Lina Ophoven phone: +49.6151.13-3738, fax: +49.6151.13-3739 e-mail: presse.mathildenhoehe@darmstadt.de
Opening and Open air party: July 11, 2009, 6.30 pm
Institut Mathildenhöhe
Olbrichweg 13 - 64287 Darmstadt
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday 10 am – 6 pm; Thursday 10 am – 9 pm
Admission
8 € | 6 € reduced; family-card: 16 € (two adults with children)