Prices and auctions

The highest initial price, at current auctions, in August 2016, was Giorgio di Chirico’s, his work dating back to 1968 I GRANDI ARCHEOLOGI. It's not big -175 x 113.5 x 101 cm, made of bronze and is being sold by Giorgio de Chirico foundation and and foundry. The price is one million euro. Once sold, I will tell you how far the auction has gone.

I adore the vendor’s observation – here it is: Very rare never been on Auction. Piece Unique. certificated and archieved at GIORGIO DE CHIRICO FOUNDATION. Very interesting Price .... the fact is that it is really a very interesting price – that is why I publish the work.

Otherwise prices are normal at the moment - check two randomly chosen artists Johann Eyfells and his work Seven Cubes of 1980, it is made of bronze and its dimensions are 30.48 x 30.48 x 30.48 cm. The starting price is 100 000 USD.

And the other author I picked up for you is Ewerdt Higemann from Switzerland. His work Imploded Pyramid was estimated at 100 000, but in euro. Well, it is bigger, it is for open space, and moreover it is 300 x 150 x 150 cm. The sculpture was created in 2000 in a Roland Aphold Gallery on the occasion of his exhibition.

In New York in 2014 under the auspices of the Sculpture Fund at the New York parks, the artist exhibited a series of seven monumental sculptures on Park Avenue. Right now his sculpture is in Basel. When selling abroad, delivery, customs and VAT are borne by the seller. The current price of the gallery is 120 000 EUR.

The main conclusion is that if you want to yearn one million euro out of sculpture, you need to have created it in the middle of last century at the latest. Now we know what’s the catch!

Andy Warhol. Electric Chair

Eskimo have 72 words meaning various states of water. We have less: water, steam, ice, snow, sleet, hail, fog ... this is enough for our conditions. A translation of an ordinary Eskimo story will be difficult to us. We do not have a comparable perceptual experience and the associated vocabulary.

Tibetans have 17 words for the different states of mind. I will give out the secret of how our translators handle – they translate from English! The presumption with information thus submitted is that you have similar perceptions with the Englishman. The affirmation is that the blue which is in your head is the same blue, which is in the head of the Englishman who without doubt had in mind the Tibetan lama, giving concrete and specific guidance with his text to specific students during specific practices , in the 15th century for example. I can, however, assure you that the blue you have never seen is more blue than the one that you would hardly see.

There are things in the texts which are simple and comprehensible. Tibetan meditation teacher will check and tell you what is your fundamental mental attitude - concrete or abstract interpretation of reality emerging in your mind through perception. With abstract interpretation attitudes you will see the same event as lights or as scenes and characters from your cultural group. Note the difference - at a certain stage of meditation will see either lights, or stage, the reality around us. Not to get confused – pinch yourself and touch your computer for example. Yes, do it now! Relax, everything is fine, you do not hang over an abyss of conscious energies, you are sitting at your computer. That is your concrete reality. And another meditator will see it as light fields interacting. On the subject of direct vision and direct knowledge remember Castaneda, if you cannot think of something else.

One sees what one knows. So while you were eating your "popara" as a child, you were uploaded the right software. It helps you visualize the same way and the same world as your mommy. It’s not funny.

Why do bother you? It’s simple - I wonder how to show you a series of prints by Andy Warhol from his dramatic theme Electric chair. Buy them – I think you can still find them at Saatchi.

What sort of a cultural situation we have to overcome

At international exhibitions, our counterparts (e.g. from Germany) and we overcome the same jury, we pay the same membership fees, later we take adjacent stands. These are the similarities. The difference is that we have different starting positions defined from our societies. As long as that word is appropriate for the Bulgarian one.

The problem stands in the standard. The connoisseur as well as art buyer at exhibitions are usually from the middle class  - professional people in a democratic society. As professionals, they appreciate professionalism. They are paid for professional level, and they pay for level and quality. It is normal.

Without this broad public base with default shared values, there can not be a sharing of ideas and values, e.g. the market. (Take notes :)

My budget for the organization of the exposition of the greatest contemporary Bulgarian artists is € 100,000 and another € 100,000 for online advertisement. That is the ceiling in Bulgaria. In Germany that would be only the floor. For example, the tiny project of a Master of Arts in Hamburg Academy is also € 100,000. They use as a starting base what I am fighting for now with the whole team of colleagues behind me. Otherwise our cars are the same, and Kaufland prices are the same. It is just that they have a society to count on. A democratic one, I would add. The free exchange of values is the foundation of that society.

With monthly income below € 3,000, you can not participate in this level exchange, where the all the shareable ideas and values are, and with them the benefits of civilization as well. You can only watch it on TV. That is your participation.

And your children, whose art studies you pay would compete with that.

Why do you think their professors would tell them? If the professors were truly successfully would they have changed their profession of free artists and become teachers?

In other words - products and services that you create are not worth € 3,000 per month, and that is why you are not able to exchange them. The decent level of middle (for Bulgaria) class is € 1,000 per month. Cultural sector municipal officials earn perhaps € 500? With that money, the maximum that you can afford are € 5-10 tickets per concert. And what is the fee you will pay to the artist with these so-earned money? Can you imagine what kind of access has THIS artist to European exchange values, with his € 300 per month, suffered money, moreover subsidized by the budget and without which the garbage bins follow? With an income below € 1,000 a month, in Europe, functioning institutions of a democratic society could not be formed and, and with them to be arisen and carried out this creative exchange exciting us.

I will further tell you about some practices – true jokes. Can you imagine how the NGO  looks like in the eyes of aging communist activist women? Am I kidding? I'm not saying that they are unnecessary or made without love. They have their audience. Yeah, but they have written over the past 25 years culture budgets in the local municipality and thus have formed the basic cultural situation. Funding is mainly for maintenance of buildings and for salaries. Artists count on enthusiasm. I do not mean budget - performers. I am not telling you that these are unworthy people, or unprepared or ill-intentioned. If only they were! Our professional standards simply do not exist on their life horizon. You do not believe me, I know – I do exaggerate. And have you ever heard of Bulgarian art, presented at an international art exhibition by a budget gallery? I do not mean the political activities of the Foreign Ministry, where the exhibition is part of the record and background of a cocktail during the the contracts sign up :) This is what we have to overcome now. Because The One, distributing the talents is not checking your passport nationality.

Cultural projects at this consumer level are as the Azis Project. The poetic image that the singer Vasko embodies is of a gypsy gay. A social project in the light of European integration. Market-oriented, the project is an accurate evaluation of the mass values market ​​and therefore it is successful and from professional point of view even flawless, thumbs up for Kiro! (the Producer). Top of the show was his wish to present it in Bulgaria Hall. The director of Bulgaria Hall resigned because of this insolence. Dear colleague, this is not any insolence. This is the assessment of reality. This is the most successful musical project in the country. Grammy Awards are awarded for the number of sold vinyl recordings, not for what you and I think about music. Congratulations!

Now let’s get back to work. Exhibitions and success at the global arena are on their way. It is just in the other way that it will happen. As usual.

Hristo Yavashev as Christo

This work represents our countryman, packed up and shot by Annie Leibovitz.

The meeting between a renowned photographer and a great artist gave birth to a memorable portrait sculpture.

I do not know what they talked about with Yavashev, but the conversation with Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of the setting for the portrait is quite funny. "Remove the ornaments" Annie told the Queen, having in mind the crown, thus prompting some embarrassed reactions and unequivocal outrage. The Queen’s heavy, dramatic and authoritative appearance at the portrait, does not really need the external attributes of the authority.

Take a look at the Vogue page with covers by Annie Leibovitz. 

50 years Contemporary Bulgarian Sculpture

We were learning the craft in the studios of Velichko Minekov, Krum Damyanov and Valentin Starchev. They are grown as people and artists thanks to Academician Lubomir Dalchev and Professor Marko Markov. Projects of my student, a true media of world trends, are present both in the New York Times and in university publications for Contemporary Art.

My teacher Lubomir Prahov was student of Professor Marko Markov. Marco and Arno Breker had shared similar fate – they both were Burdel’s students and had worked in totalitarian socialist societies. If you take a close look at the techniques of low relief in Bulgarian coins, German mark and Euro, you will find a surprising continuity of the school. Totalitarian regime is simply an extreme period in art and civilization. At seventy-eight at the end of the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria Academic Dalchev fled to the United States. In his interview on the BBC, beyond the veil, the journalist asked him:

- What did you miss in Bulgaria so you decided on such an extreme step?
- I want to die as a Free Painter – Dalchev replied. 

With the four fundamental for Sculpture Park Varna exhibitions I want to present exactly that spirit and its road in the last 50 years. The Spirit of Europe.  

  

Plastic language in

Contemporary Bulgarian Sculpture

in the works of:

Professor Krum Damyanov

Professor Valentin Starchev

Professor Velichko Minekov

Professor Angel Stanev

Professor Emil Popov

Professor Ivan Slavov

Ivan Rusev

Alyosha Kafedjiiski

Professor Stefan Lyutakov

Professor Plamen Bratanov

Professor Georgi Chapkanov

Snezhana Simeonova

Ognyan Petkov

Dan Tenev

Kiril Meskyn

Veselin Dimov

acad. Vezhdi Rashidov

Dan Tenev & Karlheinz Stockhausen

Project of Veselin Dimov and Dan Tenev

Varna Montmartre

Early, alternative creative community in Bulgaria,

The Garagists, 1975-1980, who founded the creative community Vulcan:

Dimitar Traychev

Maria Zafirkova

Dobrinka Banova

Nikolay Nikolov

Georgi Lechev

Venko Ivanov

Peter Marinov

Veselin Dimov

Toni Ignatov

Stoycho Nikiforov

Kiril Yanev

Todor Tachev

The exhibitions will present the most significant for me artists of two generations Bulgarian sculptors who kept, developed and past further the thin civilization thread, working on the dark side of the Iron Curtain. Created behind the veil of the figure and plot, the artistic language built by them bears no shadow of spiritual totalitarian yoke and is part of Contemporary European Sculpture.