The works of Atanas Patsev (1926–1999) are a reflection of the milestone events of the artist’s life, namely his participation in the partisan movement as an 18-year-old; his undergraduate studies at the Academy of Arts, Sofia between 1944 and 1949, when the institution underwent major changes; his travels to France and Italy in 1963, which gave a whole new meaning to his sense of freedom; organized attacks against his 1968 exhibition, when he was banished to the camp of misbehaving intellectuals with communist party membership such as authors Radoy Ralin, Boris Delchev, and Veselin Andreev, and artists Lyubomir Dalchev and Genko Genkov.

The inadmissible use of techniques conducive to expressiveness, experimentation with erspective, venturing into the taboo territory of eroticism, the rebellious text ‘On Weightlessness’ included in a brochure promoting his 1968 exhibition, all add up to Patsev’s already forgotten resistance against the unspoken rules of proper behavior in a strictly hierarchical society.

The enormous tension between his faith in communist ideology and his rebellious nature is not manifested in his artworks alone. Starting in 1980, through to his death, he filled 94 notebooks with barely legible diary notes that have not been published so far.

Artworks and texts featured in the exhibition provide an insight into Patsev’s personality, and the ‘intoxicating dreams’, dramatic misgivings, sensual joys, and acutely painful experiences he was overwhelmed with. No other Bulgarian artist ever resorted to such a suicidal range of emotions to blend happiness brought by boundless faith with the terrifying realization that the latter is a utopia.

Creativity ‘shall be pushed to the limit, up to the point of getting white-hot’, he wrote as he painted until he was completely exhausted, racking his brains over heuristic ideas and working up theories ‘of weightlessness’ and ‘relative space’.

One of the works featured in the exhibition is a composition comprising nine rotatable squares whose positions can be changed. This results in 95 126 814 720 possible combinations (according to Valentin Iliev, Assoc. Prof.).

Regardless of his focus on composition, the artist’s most notable achievements belong to the genre of portrait painting. Patsev perceives the person opposite himself as a means of getting to know his own soul rather than the person being portrayed.

An exhibition catalogue is available. Also, the exhibition is complemented by the following events:

Lecture by Kalin Nikolov regarding his book Atanas Patsev — Overcoming the Impossible, 15 January, 2019, 6 pm.

Lecture by Alesiyan Patsev, 22 January, 2019, 6 pm.