At the same
time /around 1975/ students of prof. Dechko Uzunov asked him what is Socialist
Realism. That is, the professor replied, to paint the portraits of the comrades
in such a manner that they will be able to recognize themselves.
The
conceptual world of John Cage in his most emblematic works
4.33
and
Construction
… the gasping time of the XXth century in this languid
and exquisite sound structure by Stockhausen
...this
gulp of civilization could be shared and lived with the percussion band of
Dobri Paliev in Bulgaria Hall - Sofia
back in 1978.
The creation of a musical phrase and the construction
of sculptural structure and form are different “programs” for visualization of
ideas, knowledge and sensitivity… The same knowledge, lacking in our Academy,
which was freely and systematically taught in the Conservatory from the great Bulgarian
musician and composer professor Dobri Paliev. They were seriously studying there theory –
aleatorics and dodecaphony, and later during repetitions were learning
techniques and forms methodology in the latest avant-garde works coming from
the USA, Europe and Japan.
My Sitting
Figure is created later, in 1979. You haven’t thought that such a complete and
mature plastic vision like in my debut could appear on its own on a bare lawn,
have you? An occurrence of some kind, an idea?
A quality vision could hardly be formed outside the
academic environment.
I studied systematically mathematics, music and
modelling. Well, and physics and foundry in the Technical University. However by
way of illustration Mitko Traichev explained to a young colleague “Vesso was like
the Cherry Cannon”. I disagree, but when Mitko tells you something, you should
write it down so that you don’t forget it.
And now, as a dessert, my favorite work of Stockhausen
– “Helicopter String Quartet”
Art & Finance Conference 2016 has just
been inaugurated in Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.
Conferences
represent the visible part of a unique and fascinating project of Luxembourg
Financial Ministry, Deloitte Luxembourg and major Dutch editions and art
institutions. Luxembourg is the center of art market in Europe and established
a coherent infrastructure, which seems to me will determine the future in our
sector. Conferences are held annually starting from 2000.
A few
years ago, in Provadia, traffic police pulled over a rattletrap I happened to
be in. They checked the documents and asked the driver about his occupation.
-I am a painter, he admitted.
-I am writing down “unemployed”, the policeman said.
So it goes.
To
complete the picture, I would add that the unemployed was my student, who two
years earlier had defeated young designers and alumni of world top 50
universities and academies, at Design Expo in Berlin, at their premises. The New York Times highlighted in their
article about the “German Festival” my
student’s project and the project of a gang of Berlin architects.
The media
landscape/ environment in which I am currently promoting my project Sculpture
Park Varna in the USA! can be felt most clearly in the article “Picasso,
Van Gogh and Modigliani masterpieces emerge in Panama Papers. A painting seized
by the Nazi claimed in Mossack Fonseca affair”.
Masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall
and Modigliani were found to be of key importance to the affair. The name of
the granddaughter of the Spanish genius also appears in the register. The
documents are from the period from 1977 to 2015, but the speculations story began
further in the past.
This art aspect
of the international scandal fell outside Bulgarian media sphere of interest,
but is not to be neglected. For the
simple reason that the largest sums of money disappear like water in sand
alongside the artwork of recognized masters of modern art., which is bought by
the richest among the richest. Extensive revelations about the art market
secrets, in the light of “Mossack Fonseca” affair were published in the British
“The Guardian”, the Italian magazine “L’Espresso” and many others. We shall
only look at the most shocking issues, as they are too many.
The Panama
Papers, as everybody calls them, the giant leak of offshore financial records reveals
some unknown secrets about the murky art market. The revelations shook not only
the global politics but undermined this gigantic market used by the world
financial elite to become super-rich. In 2015, sales of art exceeded $63.8
billion, according to the TEFAF Art Market Report, with top-dollar art
experiencing the greatest growth. Half of the transactions are private, according
to the same source. The rest is done through public auctions, which guarantee
sales price transparency but usually still allow the players to remain a
mystery.
While secrecy
may be exploited legally and is perfectly admissible to avoid unwanted
publicity of buyers and sellers, it can also be employed for nefarious purposes,
such as evading taxes, hiding shady ownership histories and money laundering since
art is easily transportable and can be very expensive, noted The Guardian.
A market left in
the shadow for decades, multimillion-dollar auction financing is now
commonplace at the highest end of the art market. The documents released
provided a look on sellers and buyers of art, priceless masterpieces seized by
the Nazis and even mention a granddaughter of Picasso. One of the most
expensive paintings sold at the Ganz auction, writes “L’Espresso”, was
Picasso's "Women of Algiers, version O." It's one of a celebrated
series of fifteen paintings Picasso made in the mid-1950s. In recent years, as
art prices have grown dramatically, transactions are often obscured by the use
of offshore companies, front men, free trade zones, manipulated auctions and
private sales. While secrecy may be exploited legally to avoid publicity, limit
legal exposure or ease operations across borders, it can also be employed for
nefarious purposes, such as evading taxes and hiding shady ownership histories.
The work at the
center of the controversy, by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, is known as
"Seated Man with a Cane." Amedeo Modigliani’s Seated Man With a Cane
is the subject of a court battle between a New York gallery and the heir of an
art dealer forced to flee from the Nazis during the second world war. Modigliani
was a bohemian young, alcoholic and died because of tuberculosis a century ago,
probably he never thought that his painting would sell today for more than $170
million.
The so-called Panama Papers — the leak of 11.5 million
files from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca — have given us a deep look
into the many ways offshore shell companies are used to conceal the ownership
of art. Leaked initially to Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper, the
documents have been pored over by a consortium of journalistic outlets, which
released a series of articles, several about the art market.
The documents reveal the surprising extent of art ownership
behind such veils. At this point, though, the papers have not established the
degree to which these strategies are being used, as some suspect, to manipulate
markets, evade taxes or launder money.
Before, as my friend Professor of Painting Vladimir Ivanov says, painters were either good or bad. Now they are either known or unknown. Damian
Hirst is the most famous and expensive living artist in the world nowadays.
Perhaps, coming after our Christo. The difference between them is that Christo
is a painter. You think, may be, we are discussing painters. False. We are
discussing sales technology, and even that is not so exactly correct
We are discussing “Who is Who in the world of art” within information
society.
Back in 1991 I encountered that problem. The great, still unknown to me
painter Nedko Boutzev had arranged a presentation of Contemporary Bulgarian Art
in the USA. His list contained 17 people. The exposition was in an emblematic American
university. The event was organized by a foundation, which had previously
presented in the same university the art of South Africa, Argentina and Cuba of
course. That was in Cuba where the beautiful president of the foundation and Nedko
happened to be fellow students at the Academy of Havana. Connections work over there
as well.
At my home at the time
we were talking about the exhibition’s organization and I was greatly impressed
that a boss as big as her has not yet turned 30. We are a small foundation, she
told me, we are financed by a foundation operating by continents. I also could
not understand, a stupid idea in my opinion, why we should present a nationally
significant concept in a somewhat university. You don’t get the point, Nedko was lecturing me. Outside university, it’s pure business. You
see, an investor wants to invest in a certain area of contemporary art. He addresses
the relevant agent. The agent brings to his attention a few artists with ideas,
exposed in the university gallery, artists similar to the market conceptions of
the investor. They choose one, sit down facing the painting and together with
the PR agency identify the target group of customers of the paintings, which do not yet exist even in the artist’s
head. Several years of hard work to develop the market, from one side and
the cultivating of the artist’s personality, from the other, so that he can be
the holder and the image of the trade mark.
He is the trade mark. A series of exhibitions of
unparalleled
success take place in the public space. Everything is sold out. Everybody
has won a lot; the investor has managed a turnaround in cash flow. Even Art in
America has highlighted it!
Ourprofessorsspeakforeignlanguagesandstartpromoting their new vision in front of the students. Our provincial artists abandon
their own ideas and start “copy” to keep up-to-date.
Our Arts Institute rearranges the list of Bulgarian artists to comply with the new trend. Our imitators start appearing at the forefront
of our rankings.
In the meantime, Dan
Tenev lives in poverty in Merichlery and writes digital lines on the ridges of
the garbage dumps past Dimitrovgrad. His works can be seen from a satellite.
Search “land art” and you will get the American comments to Dancho’s works. A
great artist! He is paying it off with his life.
Nedko has also paid it
off. His advertisement company was serving Sliven municipality. His employees from
the beginning have accumulated 18 years of experience in the company. The
mayor, Lechkov, was replaced. The big bosses like each other. Lechkov had
worked with Nedko. Nedko had a bank loan to repay. A wife, kids, family….it
works like that.
I don’t know where he is right now. I wrote him an email. He
did not answer.
Our basic
considerations about life, existence and our being become meaningless after we cross
the border. Further on, from unconditional truth they turn into the Ones, that
need to justify themselves and later turn into such things, which are better
left unsaid, because you are in the realm of another myth visualization.
My friends in the Netherlands are publishing a
journal, dedicated to Bulgarian culture. To start with, they encountered the
difficulty to explain in a comprehensible way what exactly did the saint
brothers 1161 years ago. I will give you a hint, they invented a new font. We
are not talking about Times New Roman, or for instance Verdana or Calibri Light, are we J.
You see, this is the problem. Have you ever
thought about it? Hint number two.
They needed this font to translate the
Holy Bible in Bulgarian.
I suggest you to
translate from German to Bulgarian a simple technical service description, let’s
say of an appliance, as required in the trade provisions. The requirement is to
use only Bulgarian words, no words imported from foreign languages. For example,
“пъхате щепсела в контакта” [pahate shtepsela v kontakta]. It is not the same, is it? You do not dispose
of the culture platform and the accompanying domestic habits, which might have
initiated Bulgarian terminology and practice and which you might have used
without a second thought to provide an accurate and unambiguous translation.
And now the main
question – If around 855 our culture didn’t have comparable with the ancient Jewish,
Greek and Latin spiritual concepts or Christian practice and the accompanying terminology
and semantic tools, HOW EXACTLY did the Holy brothers translate the spiritual
literature? Can you imagine how St Cyril was feeling and how he managed to explain
to the Rome cardinals that Bulgarian is equal and comparable to Latin? Not just
the language itself, but Bulgarian culture and spiritual tradition at the time.
Why haven’t you thought
about it?
-“The taxi driver” Andreshkois created as a character during the detention
under arrest of Al Capone and reflects local tax practices and the accompanying
“survivor” – but please try to translate the story so that a junior “nemets”* can
understand.
* “Niam”, “nemets” is
a dumb person, a person of unsound mind, who doesn’t speak Bulgarian, for
example a German / in the story/.
- In the early
democracy few friends of mine translated in Hungarian “Bai Ganyo”. They
published it. It was very successful and my friends got recognition and thanks.
Hungarians have mostly enjoyed that this strongly positive character with no
foreign language knowledge or culture, equipped only with his entrepreneurial
spirit and skills manages to do business in Europe.
But why am I bringing
this to you? The English version of the blog was launched.I just don’t know what we started.
This is a computer image based on a scanned printed copy from an
old Art magazine. What I gave them was a colorful file on a celluloid medium
/that was a joke, in fact it was a slide from “Leica” camera, format 6 x 6 cm,
which was later stolen, excuse me, diverted from the editorial office of Art
magazine in 1986. It was part of an overview of provincial artists. The title
was “artists out of the capital” but it was clear enough. Provincial, non-Sofia
is territorial, rather than value based way of thinking, though it may seem so. What a grey and sly reasoning! While the task was colorful – I did
my best the feeling from the painting to be the same as during the opening. A
warm, late summer’s day, under the soft sun, I was left alone with a bottle of
red champagne, I was drinking it leisurely, without a thought of breaking it
into some floating things.
Cheers for the Water Dragon!
1996. There is this Emerging Dragon, in the yacht marina bay of Golden
Sands, red girders anchored at 5 - 6 meters in depth. Just below the fishermen
village, a favorite place for divers. Over there, where the stream winds along
the coast. The dragon was submerged, only the tops of the 4-meter girders
protrude from the water. Perspective in thick space is different, the light
breaks through more slowly and the girders heavily totter.
The next year I attended Process-Space, organized
by Mr Mitko Grozdanov. I have always liked working beyond the horizon of
perceptions and eventually to bring something from beyond there. That is the
reason I like anonymity. When I disappear – and there it goes – without realizing
10 years have passed.
The picture shows Tsetso Krastev and me,
loading the boat, taking the pipes offshore and releasing them to float
downstream. All this stuff, one of whose gold-foiled floating and open to the
wind pipes the picture shows, quickly disappeared in the unknown, not as I
expected.
Six-meter gold-foiled pvc pipe. Its lower end
is cupped and made heavier in order to float upright and free. The upper end is
left open the wind to sough in it on its way.
The image, as in my imagination, shows hundreds
of pipes floating freely downstream. Reality was different – we released the
pipes in Balchik Bay and while we were getting to the coast, three boats had already
approached the pipes that had failed to float away. The ‘seagulls’ impetuously
loaded and took away the trophy. It is ridiculous to think that the definition
of an artistic piece of work is a specific piece you can entry in a museum or
gallery collection. Four gilded pipes reside in the gallery of Balchik, They
are there. The work is not. The work floats covered in light – as you can see.
