Jewish people’s major issue is that as they travel through the land, they always search for land. Perhaps the deep-down essence of my works is also related to that same issue. I suppose they are much less related to specific places and much more so to wandering around, or to travel itself.

Gredi Assa

Travels is a retrospective exhibition celebrating Bulgarian artist Gredi Assa, who turned 70 this year. Through the travel metaphor, it presents the artist’s development, paying special attention to his contribution to the development of contemporary Bulgarian art and the latter’s place on the European and world art scene. Gredi Assa is a significant figure in Bulgarian visual art, who has had a palpable impact on the process of refreshing visual language of the 1980’s and 1990’s. The artist has had more than 80 solo exhibitions, having also participated in more than 100 collective exhibitions home and abroad.

The exhibition features more than 140 artworks, including oil and watercolour paintings and drawings, created between the late 1970’s and the present day, some of which are exhibited for the first time. Artworks included in the exhibition were provided by Gredi Assa himself (from his studio and personal collection), as well as by galleries and museums throughout the country and private collectors.

The travelling artist is a landscape artist, either urban or natural, which is even truer for Gredi Assa. As a traveller, he is equally interested in interiors, portraiture, still life, museum exhibits and architectural details, all of which he transforms into landscapes. Gredi Assa is a landscape artist, a romantic tendency deeply rooted in his nature as an artist. He travels through and creates cultural landscapes, i. e. natural, urban, museum, everyday landscapes created by cultural and historical layering and interconnection. Yet all these encounters that are so full of the past are also new discoveries, always leading to a new horizon and the conquering of new territories in the shape of the artist’s own Age of Discovery.

A large-scale multimedia seeks to bring the viewer close to the artist’s working routine and personality. The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated album featuring texts by Prof. Chadar Popov, PhD and Ivo Milev. The exhibition halls of the Sofia City Art Gallery underwent a complete makeover to fit the requirements of an exhibition design plan specially developed for the exhibition.

The exhibition is curated by Ivo Milev in partnership with the Sofia City Art Gallery. The project was made possible with kind support from the Ministry of Culture, Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation, Aurubis Bulgaria AD, Dundee Precious Metals Inc., Kaufland Bulgaria, Unicredit Bulbank, Sopharma, Glavbolgarstroy Holding AD, Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant and Doverie Pension Fund. The exhibition takes place with place with the media support of BTA.