METARESERVES - Urban ShortCut - Изкуство и свързаност

METARESERVES

Exhibition halls “Rafael Mihailov” Veliko Tarnovo / 23. 05. 2023 – 11. 06. 2023

Curator:

Atanas Totlyakov

Assistant:

Curator: Nurkan Nuf

Individual participants and interactions:

Atanas Totlyakov, Dan Tenev, Darina Peeva, Michail Mihailov, Milen Algenski, Mladen Mladenov

Group interactions:

Process-oriented art project “Intention for Anti-Item,” which includes a series of performances, construction and deconstruction of objects, conceptual drawings, photographs of actions, video films, digital collages, texts with theoretical analyses, installations, and interventions in public environments.
Coordination and management of the process: Atanas Totlyakov, Ekaterina Ivanova, Denitsa Milusheva, Yanitsa Fendulova

The participants of “Intention for Anti-Item” are students, majoring in “Visual Studies” and “Pedagogy of Art Education” at the Faculty of Fine Arts, St. St. “Cyril and Methodius”: Antoaneta Toneva, Bogomil Ivanov, Gabriela Nikolova, Galatea Zaharieva, Daniela Nikolova, Zornitsa Vassileva, Ivanina Dimitrova, Ilina Peneva, Mariana Dimitrova, Momchil Enchev, Nadezhda Deneva, Radostin Radoev, Rilka Pencheva, Selenay Mehmedova, Svilena Doneva, Simona Apostolova, Stefan Vasilev, Stoyan Georgiev.
Momchil Enchev and Stefan Vasilev contributed significantly to the realization of the idea.

“Metareserves” is an exhibition that demands acceptance of the new conditions in which the contemporary artist exists. It embraces the paradigm of metamodernism. The very definition of an exhibition cannot fully reflect the dynamics of the processes that make up the total artistic project composed of related works, artists, situations, instances, and institutions developed over time. Even the opening date of the event, 23.05.2023 at the “Rafael Mihailov” Exhibition Halls Veliko Tarnovo, is only one point in a purposefully generated process with projections in both the past and the future.
.

The name “Metareserves” is interpreted in many ways. “Metareserves” is preserved cultural capital, added to the field of art and social interactions at the right moment. The inclusion in the game of actors with inspiring creative abilities and held powers, changes the state of the established order. “Metareserves” is also a purposeful action that expands the possibilities of sharing the multitude of individual patterns that act in parallel, synchronously, asynchronously, clash, resist, connect with others, replicate from consciousness to consciousness, they are accepted or rejected, subjected to statistical analyses or emotionally evaluated, according to the dominant norms simultaneously in the Global Art World, but also in its local meta-subdivisions.

Participants in the exhibition are artists who are simultaneously in at least two states of professional recognition. They are often cited by some as original and singular in terms of their creative work, while being completely ignored by others. Sometimes, this state of oscillation between acceptance and rejection occurs at the same time. The participants in the exhibition are at once elite and marginal, avant-garde and ariergarde of art. They are simultaneously “in” and “outside” the well-established field. They are “through” things, but with the power to modify what exists. So they generate the metamorphosis of creative expression, leading to a new structural form of the field we usually call art. The dual and polysemous states give grounds to define the indicated selection as belonging to metamodernism.

One of the key concepts in the paradigm under this discussion is oscillation. Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker in “Notes on Metamodernism” define the characteristics of metamodernist oscillation as “unity and multiplicity, totality and fragmentation, singularity, and ambiguity.” (Vermeulen, van den Akker, Notes on metamodernism. https://www.metamodernism.com/)

Metamodernist oscillations in the exhibition “Metareserves”:

The changing state of form of the works (Dan Tenev, Mladen Mladenov).

Dan Tenev
„Self-determining, self-forming structure with air” – material: polyethylene – dimensions: 800 cm / 120 cm / 140 cm

Mladen Mladenov
„Changes in the horizon” – kinetic installation – dimensions: 500 cm / 50 cm

Mladen Mladenov
„Respective spaces 1″ – photography, digital print – 8 pieces 50 cm/50 cm, 1 piece 100 cm/140 cm

Changing meaning by updating the work in a new environment (Michail Mihailov, Darina Peeva).

Michail Mihailov

Video documentation of the performance “Self-brainwashing#2”. Special event of the exhibition “There you are” at Ca’Foscari University (Courtyard), Venice
Drawing from the exhibition “There you are”, Bulgarian Pavilion part of the 59th edition of the International Art Exhibition “La Biennale di Venezia” – colored pencils on paper with an involuntary intervention of an individual. Size 100cm /100cm /20cm

Darina Peeva

„Homomachine 1″ – algraph, 200/140 cm
„Homomachine 2″ – algraph, 200/140 cm

Changing meanings by modifying codes for their interpretation (Milen Alagensky).

Milen Alagenski
The Epic of Gilgamesh in Binary Code Series – Mixed Media – 50cm/70cm/8cm

Modifications of the creative act through the participation of different sensations (Atanas Totlyakov).

Atanas Totlyakov
„Oscillation/vision/tactility/vision 1″ – digital print – 15 pieces, acrylic on canvas – size: 50/70 cm

Atanas Totlyakov
„Oscillation/vision/tactility/vision 2″ – 5 photographs, digital print and 5 wooden objects, 50/70 cm

Atanas Totlyakov
Cultural features of makeup” series – digital print – 100/70 cm each

Parallel existence in different states and locations, leading to institutional relocation

(participants in “Intention for Anti-Item”)

Stefan Vasilev “Collage 1 and 2” – digital print on vinyl – 300 cm/200 cm
Photo 1-3 – digital print on polymer board – 100/120 cm, photographer: Nurkan Nuf
Anti-items – Bogomil Ivanov, Svilena Doneva, Simona Apostolova, Stefan Vasilev

Stefan Vasilev “Collage 4” (detail) – digital print on vinyl 250/180 cm
Stefan Vasilev “Conceptual Drawing 1” (detail) – digital print on vinyl 180cm/500cm

Simultaneous action of deconstruction and reconstruction of meaning

(All participants)

Simultaneous action of individual and group forms of informed hesitation

(All participants)

Harmonizing the opposite positions

(All participants)

Oscillation between the object-subject relationship between work and author

(All participants)

Fluctuation and equilibrium between established poles of inherent feelings and emotion

(All participants)

Middle way between mutually exclusive positions on reason and patterns of thought

(All participants)

The underlying metamodernist oscillations, formulated for the exhibition, are the starting point for a time-spanning analysis of what has been achieved and the undertaking of new creative actions. They are a firmly stated position for developing the idea as a parallel yet inseparable process from life. The mediating environment of the Metareserves exhibition cannot be defined in only one way. “Metareserves” is part of a generative transmedium – always “through” things, with a new horizon after each passage. The new boundaries emerge as a kind of “constructive engagement” through which the road traveled is revisited. The pendulum of emotions is averaged between uncertainty and certainty, between postmodern irony and a new sincerity. Thought embraces both the singular and the plural, the atomistic and the holistic. All fluctuations and resulting changes are scrutinized in order to make an informed decision about creative actions in relation to art but also beyond it. The exhibition “Metareserves” is a manifestation of pragmatic idealism in the crisis zone between the individual artist and the contradictory global world.

Video

RELATED PROJECTS

RELATED LOCATIONS