The project curator Dr. Maria Vasileva has invited 43 prominent Bulgarian art and cultural historians belonging to different generations and fields of work (lecturers, researchers, museum curators, directors of art galleries, museums and nongovernmental organizations, art critics, curators and freelance researchers) to each choose an artwork from the Sofia City Art Gallery collection regardless of historical period, genre or media, an artwork they like and consider to be important, justifying their choice in a text comprising a single page.
The project aims to look into the factors that single out an artwork as valuable and important for the development of Bulgarian art from today’s perspective; to establish whether selection criteria have changed as compared to the ones applied in decades past; whether the best textbook examples of artworks have stood the test of time; whether the language of art criticism has changed; what is the personal stance of the most prominent Bulgarian art historians. The point is to look closely at an artwork and analyze it both in view of its specific features and the features it shares with other works belonging to the same historical period.
It has been more than 20 years since radical political changes in Bulgarian society took place, yet the reconsideration of the official history of Bulgarian art has been made at a very slow pace. Permanent museum exhibitions have remained the same as they were in the 1980’s, representative exhibits featuring, out of sheer habit, the same old familiar names.
Within this context, the “The Choice” exhibition is an attempt to analyze and reconsider the situation. The project reveals significant changes in the Bulgarian art scene, where alongside examples of classical and modern painting, sculpture and graphic arts, there stand convincing works of contemporary art employing a variety of means of artistic expression. Alongside the collection’s masterpieces there appear somewhat forgotten names, as well as some totally unfamiliar ones; alongside classical artists there stand young artists, who provoke the interest of the public and critics.
The project comprises part of the Sofia City Art Gallery’s efforts to view the history of Bulgarian art from various angles. It is also yet another experiment involving nontraditional methods of handling the museum collection. As it was done before, the principle of selecting the artworks is on a conceptual level, connecting classical and modern painting, sculpture and graphic arts with video, photography, objects, installations, etc., lead by the ambition to reveal what is it that “speaks” most convincingly to the viewer today, and keeps his/her attention, regardless of the point in time and the media related to the artwork’s creation.
The exhibition aims to make the profession of art and cultural historians more visible. Bringing together professionals from different fields is conducive to a more diversified and in-depth dialogue between them. It is through the combination of all the activities performed by writing, researching and curating experts that what we call art history is being built.
An exhibition catalogue is also available (in Bulgarian and English).