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.