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temporary art has a fixed venue, at best, in the Sofia Art Gallery.
Curator Iara Boubnova is especially proud that in the past, especially
in 1996, when all of Bulgaria sank into economic anarchy and
the inflation rate reached 1,000 per cent, she accepted no »unclean
money« for her Institute of Contemporary Art project. »In those
days we were in the midst of a trauma of change from Communism
to capitalism, which we simply couldn’t digest, because we were
right in the middle of it.« This »trauma«, which many of the artists
we met in Sofia talked about, manifested itself – just ten years ago
– quite simply as hunger. »Our grandparents had to go begging,
and sometimes we had no idea where to buy our bread.« Iara
remembers it well.
It irritates her that it has not been possible up to this point to
bring a qualitatively valuable international art exhibition – one that
deserves the name – to Sofia. »Nobody would lend us a big Picasso
exhibition, just to name one example. We are third class citizens,
the poorest country in the EU, and we are neither interesting as a
political, nor as an economic, partner. We can’t offer an interesting
counter offer, and we can’t find anybody here, certainly not in
the government, who is willing to insure such an exhibition« says
Boubnova angrily.
The artists in Sofia are drawing some hope from the Scottish-
Bulgarian team of Chris Byrne and Iliyana Nedkova, who opened
»the first commercial gallery of an international kind« in Bulgaria
in autumn 2007. »We think it was a very optimistic time to be opening
a gallery in Sofia« says Chris Byrne. »We had practically no competition
because other galleries in Sofia have been acting like shops
until now, selling old masters, icons or academic art. Since the
accession to the EU in 2007 we’ve had fewer problems with customs,
and the economic situation of the country is also becoming
more stable, bit by bit. We see the fact that there has been no art
market until now as a challenge to create one.« ——
Nobody
would
lend us
a big
Picasso
exhibition
229
Sofia
SPIKE ART GUIDE EAST 01 — 2009
Sofia