[spectre] Video Selection "Red" Galerija10m2 in Sarajevo

[bgspectre]

"RED"

The project "Video Salon" (March 07-21, 2008) is having its third edition in 
the promising French Galerija10m2 in Sarajevo. This year it features debuts 
and Bulgarian participation. The video project platform is based on the 
established framework of cooperation among an international curator team. 
The concept is to represent on an annual basis various artists from the 
Balkan region, Central and Western Europe, as well as Asia.

A dozen of curators have been invited to this video exhibition that 
coincides with the 24-th edition of the "Sarajevo Winter" International 
Festival. They are presenting about 200 artists from 30 countries. The 
concept of this year's project has no strict thematic or technical 
parameters that the co-organizers or the authors invited by them should 
stick to. The structure that the project platform is built on is extremely 
free and open. The focus is rather on presenting a large number of various 
artistic stands thus raising questions related to the understanding and the 
boundaries of the visual, the options and diversity of media.

The Bulgarian selection titled "Red" includes works by Kalin Serapionov, 
Ivan Moudov, Daniela Kostova (Troy, New York), Stefan Nikolaev 
(Sofia/Paris), Boryana Rossa, Ventzislav Zankov, Vladimir Mitrev (Berlin), 
Nina Kovacheva and Valentin Stefanov (Sofia/Paris) and the exclusive 
participation of Mariyana Vasileva (Berlin). Prioritized as regards the 
selection of authors and works has been the intention to acquaint the 
countries from the region and the constant flow of viewers in the gallery 
and the French Cultural Center with some of the best and most active 
representatives of the young generation of Bulgarian artists. The main goal 
is to present the possibly most complete picture of the current state of 
contemporary Bulgarian art on the basis of ten varying artistic profiles. In 
order to have a relatively full and true vision of the range and quality of 
the Bulgarian artistic Diaspora the selection includes heterogeneous in 
terms of sensitivity, direction and level of visual provocation, and also 
not so young, but already emblematic for Bulgarian contemporary art, 
authors. Some of those are artists living and working in Bulgaria, others 
are rather unpopular in this country but making a career abroad, and still 
others live both in Bulgaria and abroad.

The selected works aim at representing the type and direction of visual 
thinking developed in correlation to the location that has become an 
indirect cause or "engine" for the generated ideas, its own specifics and 
topicality; or, in other words - to display the level of cultural exposure 
of the artist, of the perceived and reflected social aspects of environment.

The inner structure of the video compilation is built on a freer principle.
The works that were presented for selection took on the function of a 
self-forming organism. Selected for the exhibition were videos that on the 
one hand could create a natural meaningful and aesthetic transition one to 
another, and on the other - could set apart different groups of their own 
nature and topics. A leading criterion though was the desire that the 
selected works should disclose the intellectual potential and the creative 
capabilities of the artists themselves.

Nadia Timova, curator


                        Video Selection "Red"

Daniela Kostova's video "Frame" (2000) was created while the author still 
lived in Bulgaria. It raises essential questions related to the tiredness 
from the mundane, its baleful habits and the automatism of choices that we 
prove to make as if by the way. The work is an attempt at reconstructing our 
own (consciously chosen) reality that due to its immanent cyclic character 
turns out to be totally unrecognizable and non-segmentable. Despite some 
premised feminist nuances her video treats general human norms of behaviour.

Boryana Rossa takes part in the project with two works - "The Last Valve", 
(2004) and "Back and Forth" (1999). "The Last Valve" is a complex work which 
as the author says, represents to the fullest extent her personality and her 
entire artistic view so far. The video documents a performance where Boryana 
sews up her vulva in a demonstrative manner and this act seems scandalous 
and repulsive to many. The truth is that this is a very "happy" and 
successful work since, despite the big number of contradicting references 
that it provokes, the artist, "victimizing" herself and her biological 
"function", manages to synthesize one of the main aspects of the Ultrafuturo 
platform. Her other earlier work "Back and Forth" is built on the template 
of the stereo card but it has a quite more serious and profound message. The 
vision of the author herself and the "blurred" echoing sound arrangement 
(her childish voice recorded in a moment of tender emotion for her mother 
when the two year-old Boryana pours out her daughterly feelings in a small 
poem) stir sympathy first and then a feeling of absurd. Using this 
audio-visual "wink" which is actually a temporal and meaningful layering the 
author provides viewers with the possibility to compare and give a new 
meaning to the present and the future, their existing parallels, 
expectations and crossings.

Kalin Serapionov takes part with two works - "Why Women?" (2004) and "You 
Get It?" (2004) presenting his different view and disproving in his own way 
existing prejudices as regards sexism and the needless entailing opposition. 
In "Why Women?" the author checks the self-esteem and reflexes of Bulgarian 
women. The situation shows a "street hooligan" shooting from above with eggs 
at innocent women. Oddly enough, the artistic research indicates a sad 
statistics - none of the women manages to get out of her role of victim and 
defend herself honourably. The reaction of all women is the same - the 
biological shells cause only timid and conciliatory running away from the 
"battle-field". A comically presented fact which is at the same time noted 
with a certain bit of grievance. In the same impartial manner "You Get It?" 
tells about a rather common situation - a young couple have a long 
"elucidating" dialog that does not get the desired meaningful result. The 
"impartial" work aims at provoking adequately impartial and yet empathic 
moods. The phenomenon of "banal and meaningless dialog" is a problematic 
stage that almost every intimate relationship goes through. This work cannot 
but simply "get in tune" with the experience of each viewer.

Ivan Moudov also takes part with two works - "Traffic Control" (2001) and 
"14'13 Minutes Priority" (2005). Moudov is one of the best and most topical 
contemporary Bulgarian authors. In all his works he manages to focus on the 
essence of trivial situations from our everyday life and to examine them 
from their least expected and markedly comical side. Notwithstanding the 
matters that he deals with (his intervention is usually merciless but 
particularly nice), his talent of being funny and witty is one of the 
best-winning clues in contemporary art. It is not enough to think of a way 
of manipulation. It should look like you have mixed up somewhat unwittingly 
the rules of the game and with a big doze of artistry at that - simply to be 
forgiven, voluntarily and with a smile.

Not without a smile but driven by sympathy and sentiment Nina Kovacheva and 
Valentin Stefanov shoot their documentary video "Two Days' Distance" (2007). 
The video is actually an improvised interview taken from an old woman and an 
old man who have come to downtown Paris from a far-away place in their 
motherland and living on begging and rebeck-playing. The interview puts 
together a collage of two totally alien one to another models (personalized 
and depersonalized), demonstrating the background of the contexts that have 
given rise to them. The feelings and thoughts that the video provokes cover 
a wide range of analogies and senseless evaluations that they bring forth.

Ventzislav Zankov participates with one of his latest videos "Still Life" 
(2006). The work also titled "The Artist's Fridge" is a means used by the 
artist to try and see himself from a different angle. The fridge is "a 
diary, food, days, the days described through food". The video consists of 
hundreds or thousands of similar stills documenting the everyday contents of 
Ventzi's fridge. This is a still life slightly vibrating from the 
insignificant changes that are happening. The "diagram" of this consumption 
is a sign not only of the biological but also of the spiritual need of man. 
Seen from that angle, the "image" of living points to something 
frightening - we hardly realize the monotony of everyday life, the 
depressing similarity of the days (the eaten food) making up our life, 
otherwise motivated by huge strivings and expectations.

Mariyana Vasileva's video "Jumping Man" (2000-2005) shows a man in a suit 
making somersaults in the air, jumping on an invisible for the viewer 
trampoline. Each jump is a metaphor of man's attempt to out-jump himself and 
the routine of his everyday life. In the artist's view, contemporary society 
is full of jumping people who constantly repeat their actions with the hope 
to out-jump themselves each time by making their "jump" even better. 
"Jumping Man", "Minouk, le poisson peintre" (2003) by Stefan Nikolaev and 
"Autopainting" (2004) by Vladimir Mitrev form a particular group of videos 
that indicate a different visual "school". All three works lack narrative 
that would otherwise burden the laconic and extremely clear image and 
message. With their purity the videos provoke an impression of overbearing 
aesthetics. The "school" is the masterful insertion of a message in an art 
character whose final synthesis is equally balanced.

"Minouk" is Stefan Nikolaev's goldfish placed in an unusual and extreme for 
the more sensitive viewer situation. Within 17 minutes, with a serious 
attitude and realizing its own mission, Minouk precisely "stirs" red pigment 
in its small bowl, being careful where exactly to place the pigment. At the 
work's final stage the fish is hard to distinguish in the deep red water - 
which is also a slightly depressing sight. The references that have been 
made so far on this video's basis stretch it to several different 
directions - the art trend "Fluxus", the hypnosis from the aesthetic sight 
and the eternal argument about the nature of creative work.

The video "Autopainting" of Vladimir Mitrev shows a toy sport automobile 
whose cracked reservoir is full of red paint. The small automobile is moving 
backwards outlining in red its own axis of movement. When the paint is over 
the artist' hand appears in the still pouring in some more red "fuel". 
Gradually the car starts losing balance and going out of the outlined 
trajectory. By this act the artist comments on our egocentric behaviour in 
the socium, with a balanced sense of irony. The backward movement and the 
red are for him symbols of blind aggression:

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