In "This month" section, artnewscafe bulletin offers a wide selection of exhibitions, events, and open calls in the field of contemporary art in Bulgaria – Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Kazanlak and in Europe.
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Petar Nakov
OT, 2026.
Site-specific
Details
- Description: cover: Petar Nakov, OT, site-specific project, 2026, curated by Ivaylo Avramov, Sarieva Gallery, 40 “Otets Paisiy” Str., Plovdiv, April 30 – July 31.
SOFIA - ART TALKS SOFIA - PLOVDIV - VARNA - KAZANLAK - EUROPE
SOFIA
¬ 5 + 5 / art + fashion / group show / curated by Nadezhda Dzhakova, PhD, and Neli Mitewa / Sofia Arsenal – Museum of contemporary art, 2, Cherni Vrah Blvd. / April 30 - June 21. “Can fashion design and fine art coexist as equivalent practices without submitting to hierarchies, but, through mutual transformation, create a new visual language? Five artists and five fashion designers engage in a dialogue that requires a shift from their established practices and methodologies. The collaborating pairs do not follow a uniform model but develop it as an open process: the fashion designer translates the artistic image into structure, matter and movement; the artist designs the form as wearable, as an extension and activation of the body in space. The result is artworks that function simultaneously as objects, clothing and spatial interventions.” - Nadezhda Dzhakova https://nationalgallery.bg/exhibitions/55-artfashion/
¬ Lika Yanko / Journey to the image / solo show / curated by Nikolay Ushtavaliiski and Iva Veleva / National Gallery, The Palace, 1 Knyaz Alexander I Square / April 29 - September 5. The National Gallery owns one of the most appreciable and representative collections of artworks by the artist Lika Yanko (1928–2001). This became possible thanks to the donation gesture the artist made while still living. Whereas the two extensive exhibitions, held in 2002 and 2011, were based on the most comprehensive chronology possible, the current exhibition focuses attention on issues of her early oeuvre. https://tinyurl.com/4pz25kbm
¬ Elena Karamihaylova / … And I painted on alone / retrospective exhibition / National Gallery, The Palace, 1 Knyaz Alexander I Square / February 26 - May 31. Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary is an initiative of art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work is the basis of the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025. https://tinyurl.com/59d3fezb
¬ Nikolay Panayotov / Lunatically / anniversary exhibition / curated by Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva / National Gallery, Kvadrat 500, 1 19th February Str. / March 5 - May 31. The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. https://tinyurl.com/3rjx9yx6
¬ Giro d’Italia. A Brief History of Italy on Two Wheels / group exhibition / curated by Dominique Lora, Stefania Baldinotti, Maurizio Presutti / National Gallery, Kvadrat 500, 1 “19th February” Str. / May 5 - July 5. The exhibition depicts Italy on two wheels, from the late 1940s to the present day, illustrating the diffusion and development of the bicycle as a means of transportation, but above all as a symbol of individual and collective rebirth, characteristic of the country. It features a selection of works by contemporary Italian artists, cinematographic stills from the Mimmo Cattarinich Foundation in Rome, vintage posters from the Salce Collection Museum, and ethnographic photographs from the Palumbo Archive from the Sigismondo Castromediano Museum in Lecce. The exhibition is held on the occasion of the arrival of the 2026 Giro d’Italia in Bulgaria. https://tinyurl.com/4xfjz9ak
¬ Mirena Zlateva / Shift in focus / solo show / The Vera Nedkova House Museum, 2, 11 August St. / January 21 - June 12. Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them. https://tinyurl.com/bdhkpze6
¬ Built on a geometric principle. Visual arts, music, and architecture. Geometric form and figuration from the second half of the 20th century in Bulgaria / group show / Sofia City Art Gallery, 1 Gen. Gurko Str. / March 25 - June 7. The exhibition presents a fragment of Bulgarian art history in the form of a visual essay. It is an interpretation of the spirit and the broader aesthetic and cultural background of the post-war twentieth century in Bulgaria — a collaborative work by specialists from different professional fields. As Milla Mineva writes in the publication accompanying the project: “Opening a space for utopia and for a collective project at a moment when time itself has renounced collective projects.” The exhibition features a wide range of works—paintings, graphic art, textiles, posters, architectural drawings, a musical interpretation of the theme in a mix by DJ N:Mode, and architecture and design assignments by college and high school students. https://tinyurl.com/ysmyztxj
¬ Nadezhda Kuteva / Places and rituals / retrospective exhibition / Sofia City Art Gallery, 1 Gen. Gurko Str. / March 19 - May 25. The exhibition traces the development of the two main directions in the work of Nadezhda Kuteva from her graduation from the National School of Fine Arts in 1964 to her last works. Almost all those who write about her work, in their attempt to discover its specificity, repeat the word rhythm. Collected from various collections, her paintings in this exhibition reveal an artist who not only recreates her sense of nature and atmosphere, but also manages to depict melody. https://tinyurl.com/37nt5sth
¬ Some Time Before the End / group show / Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, 15 Yanko Sakazov Blvd. / March 5 - May 10. The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art. It brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo. https://tinyurl.com/yh5hkzd6
¬ The Inevitable Future. Artistic Strategies in the Back of History / group exhibition / curated by Stanislav Pamukchiev and Peter Tsanev / UBA, Rayko Aleksiev Hall, 125 Rakovski Str. / May 12 - 28. Exhibition with the participation of Alla Georgieva, Anton Terziev, Venelin Shurelov, Ventsislav Zankov, Vesselin Nachev, Georgi Ruzhev, Deyan Yanev, Dina Stoev, Dinko Stoev, Dumisani Karamanski, Donka Pavlova, Dr. Gatev, Elena Panayotova, Ivaylo Avramov, Ivo Bistrichki, Yovo Panchev, Kiril Kuzmanov, Krasimir Rusev, Martian Tabakov, Martin Penev, Raha, Simeon Simeonov, Slav Nedev, Stoyan Kutsev. https://tinyurl.com/ms6sjvw8
¬ Galleries. Collections. Works 2026 / group show / curated by Anelia Nikolaeva / UBA, 6 Shipka Str. / April 20 - May 27. “The fourth exhibition in the series “Galleries. Collections. Works” presents the galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Targovishte and Smolyan. As in the previous editions of the project, now we meet places, each of which is distinguished by its own cultural life, which has found a natural reflection in the appearance of the art collections. In this exhibition, each gallery presents established examples from its collection. The selection also seeks those authors who are present with special weight in the construction of local history.” - Anelia Nikolaeva https://tinyurl.com/5yk6z76s
¬ Nedko Solakov / The Little Ones / solo show / curated by Iara Bubnova / ICA - Sofia, 134 Vasil Levski Blvd. / February 26 - May 3. “The current exhibition further confirms Nedko Solakov’s unique ability to combine different types of visual language in the form of polysemantic stories, based on deeply personal experiences of aggressions engendered by socio-political reality. Each one of the seven pictorial universes is a small emotional story, familiar and understandable to everyone: the many frustrations, including political ones, as well as the few satisfactions from art and nature, calming, balancing depression, achieving nirvana, formulated as disappearance. The entirety of ordinary human life, told and shown on the canvases in a sequence determined by the author.” - Iara Bubnova https://tinyurl.com/3epm9xns
¬ Mariana Tantcheva / Space Junk / solo show / Goethe-Institut, 1 Budapest Str. / May 12 - June 13. In Space Junk, Mariana Tantcheva examines space science as the highest achievement of our civilization, but also as a clash of extremes, in which brilliant ideas, complex machinery, and immense resources ultimately end up as a simple luminous scratch in the sky or as a piece of scorched metal smashed to the ground. Rather than focusing on specific technologies or failures in our expansion into space, the exhibition Space Junk looks at what returns to Earth. Traces, fragments, and surfaces reveal how the sky is losing its inaccessibility, becoming yet another place we leave behind. https://tinyurl.com/yzmc86va
¬ Daniela Yordanova / Chroma / solo show / Credo Bonum Gallery, 2 Slavyanska str. / May 14 - 20. The present photographic project explores color as a tool for interpreting personal experience and as a visual carrier of memory. In the context of today’s accelerated everyday life, where images change at an almost instantaneous pace, the ability to linger within a single moment is gradually dissolving. The project proposes an opposite gesture — a conscious pause and attentive observation of brief, often overlooked states of presence. https://tinyurl.com/ycyht2w5
¬ Maria Kefirova / Uneven Balance / solo show / curated by Vladiya Mihaylova, in cooperation with Mira Todorova / CCA Toplocentrala Gallery - Cube, 5 Emil Bersinski Str. / April 30 - May 31. Maria Kefirova has developed her practice as a choreographer and performer across Europe and North America. She has created her own artistic system within contemporary dance and performance, combining movement, image, sound, signs, and objects. The exhibition presents her artistic system in an expanded context outside the stage, yet in direct relation to it. The exhibition includes video works, visual studies and reflections, series of drawings and objects, as well as recordings of selected performances. https://toplocentrala.bg/en/program/visual/nestabilen-balans
¬ Before the mirror / group show / curated by Gergana Minkova / +359 Gallery, 13A “Galichitza” Str. / April 23 - May 27. “The exhibition rethinks identity as an open and dynamic process that eludes any final definition or completion. The self is approached as a constructed territory of intimate negotiations—between the social, the aesthetic, and the religious; between conscious choice and subconscious resistance; between the copying of models in the formation of identity and its disintegration under the pressure of continuous “reflection”. Before the Mirror reflects all those versions of the self constructed in the effort to “be oneself”, along with the inner conflicts that accompany the search for authenticity.” - Gergana Minkova. Works by Pravdoliub Ivanov, Mariela Gemisheva, Sophia Grancharova, Невелин Иванов, Bilyana Tokmakchieva, Filip Boyadjiev, Ina Dobreva, Yves-Christian Angelov, Stodara, Vicktor Antonov, Kyril Buhowski. https://fb.me/e/6VJuWRApA
¬ impositions / group exhibition / curated by Georgi Dimitrov / nonsofia and Synthesis Gallery, 55 “Vasil Levski” Blvd / April 15 - May 31. “The first collaboration between synthesis and nonsofia presents the works of six artists who express their ideas through non-narrative photography. Although the exhibition’s focus is deliberately set and limited to the application of basic geometric categories in the presented artworks, there is a boundless contemplative experience that will ultimately provoke an in-depth analysis of our immanent state. The horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and curved lines are our reliable companions in this introspective process, which leads to a level of genuine intimacy.” - Georgi Dimitrov https://tinyurl.com/3rrew7dx
¬ Martian Tabakov / The Divine Being / solo show / Charta Gallery, 12 Vrabcha Str. / May 5 - June 7. ”The Divine Being is a body that merges the beginning and the end of time into a single point. It does not exist relative to our understanding of dimensions as they are, but is a composite of time, space, and matter. The presented sculptures recreate stages of the journey toward the Divine Being — different parts of its history before it reaches a hypothetical final form. As a result of these processes it loses its human parameters and adopts a fluid, abstract shape. Having reached this final stage, it becomes a creator — the ultimate goal of humanity.” - Martian Tabakov https://tinyurl.com/2pcpej9k
¬ Stela Vasileva / Phase Boundary / solo show / curated by Boyana Dzhikova / Little Bird Place Gallery, 7 "11th August" str. / May 12 - June 6. Phase Boundary is Stela Vasileva’s first solo show at Little Bird Place Gallery. Its starting point is a winter walk in the forest, where frozen streams crisscross the frozen ground. In these ice formations, Stela recognizes a manifestation of the human condition—the fragility of relationships, their apparent stability, and the way they can crack imperceptibly and gradually before their final collapse. The project is also an homage to the history of Little Bird Place Gallery and the philosophy of its exhibition program over the years. https://tinyurl.com/4vk82hrh
¬ Amikam Toren / everything that needs to be said / solo show / Cable Depot, 39 Stefan Stambolov Bld. / May 1 - 21. “At a time in the late sixties and seventies when conceptual art, spearheaded by Joseph Kosuth, was attempting to dematerialise art, to divorce it from any notions of the visual field, of colour, texture, or execution, to shortcut everything the experience of art had been before and insist on a direct, cerebral placement of art, driving it closer the realms of literature and philosophy, Toren was insistent about also being a painter. Toren however describes conceptual art as a way to expand, rather than purge the painter’s tool box. And indeed, although his work is grounded in philosophy and language - drawing and painting, colour and the artist’s hand, are a fundamental presence in everything he does.” - Iavor Lubomirov https://tinyurl.com/2s5rdwyu
¬ Odyssea: Le sel de la terre / group show / curated by Sacha Guedj Cohen, Camille Velluet, Boyana Dzhikova / PUNTA Gallery, 37 Stefan Stambolov Bld. / March 12 - May 9. The exhibition was created in 2024 and presented at the Spiagga Libera gallery in Marseille and in Paris with the aim of exploring different dimensions of contemporary existence through symbols such as the sea and salt, which intertwine the past, present, and future. After “Odyssea – The Song of the Sirens” presented at Buna festival, Varna, “The Salt of the Earth” proposes to explore a different space-time, one that is hard to place in a linear history and resembles a narrative of anticipation. Salt, known for its corrosive and purifying properties, materializes here as piles of charred debris within which the artists’ works unfold. https://fb.me/e/78Ks5DI1d
¬ Deyan Yanev / A Guide to the Unconscious / solo show / Doza Gallery, 52 Tsar Samuil Str. / April 28 - May 23. The exhibition offers no orientation; it embraces the impossibility of orientation itself. It does not seek to master the unconscious, but to create the conditions in which its emergence is not immediately neutralized by meaning. Here, the image is not the bearer of a hidden message, but an event that calls into question the very desire to understand. https://fb.me/e/4v3WkfY0N
¬ My Cans - You Can. Data of Statistics / collaborative show / concept by Elena Tsvyatkova / Depoo Gallery, 12 Vrabcha Str. / May 11 - 23. Through the designed visual identity, the audience will be able to see presented statistical data related to the initiative "My Cans - You Can", within which cans are used as an artistic expression and a means of artistic research. Instead of being returned to the traditional recycling cycle, these materials become the basis for an original author's interpretation, setting a new context and new value. The main idea is for an exhibition that invites us to "listen" to the constant signals of the Earth. New relationships and possibilities emerge in the exhibition space. Artists come together and merge in the use of a common material. https://tinyurl.com/25rmdv7d
¬ Assen Janev / _waves and currents 2023 / installation / Stick Place, Arosita Gallery, 12B Vrabcha Str. / April 27 - May 27. Inspired by the myth of Narcissus — who in his reflection upon the water finds both longing and failure — the work unfolds a conceptual space between seduction and withdrawal, closeness and distance, reality and illusion. The surface appears not only as a deceptive skin, but as a multilayered membrane—a threshold of transition, a zone of tension between interior and exterior. In this suspended state, its generative potential emerges: the surface is not merely a shining façade, but a catalyst of questions and a trigger for new ideas. https://fb.me/e/5OdhuTqGv
¬ Kaliya Kalacheva / Open studio / Nuance Gallery, 42 Ivan Denkoglu Str. / May 5 - 10. Nuance Gallery presents a different artistic event - an open studio of the artist Kaliya Kalacheva, taken outside the boundaries of her personal studio. The move of the studio creates a new context for perceiving art - not just as an end result, but as a living, breathing process. Visitors will be able to get up close and personal with the author's creative approach, follow different stages of her work and talk to her in an informal and inspiring atmosphere. To experience her works beyond the curatorial concept they carry, but as a separate object complete in itself. https://fb.me/e/6QF40NzQO
¬ Alternative… in the line of Utopia / group show / One Gallery, 1A “Dyakon Ignatiy” Str. / April 14 - May 14. The project considers drawing not as a finished form, but as a process – a reflexive and experimental practice that goes beyond its traditional boundaries. The exhibition includes works created during the international artist residency in Plovdiv in 2024, as well as new works and installations that expand the concept of “drawing” to the object, space and conceptual gesture. At the center of the exhibition is utopia – not as an idealized vision of the future, but as a tool for thinking about the present. https://www.onegallery.eu/
¬ Tsvetelina Stefanova / The Achilles heel of metal / solo show / Gallery [a] cube contemporary, 9 “Lyuben Karavelov” Str. / April 23 - May 14. "Metal carries within itself the promise of sustainability in construction, maintenance and protection. In industry, it is a symbol of strength, control and durability. However, every structure has its vulnerable point - limit. Rust, in turn, is not just decay, but a process related to time. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, but persistently the surface begins to change. First as a color, a stain, a texture and finally a wound. What seems stable begins a process in which it gives way. I consider rust as a state, not a defect. As a moment in which the material ceases to resist and begins to change. It is defeated. Rust is persistently present. It accumulates. It changes the structure. Until time becomes visible and the material gives way and reaches decay." - Tsvetelina Stefanova https://tinyurl.com/yc8bbzfn
¬ Svilen Nachev / The Illusion of Meaning / solo show / HOSTGALLERY, 102 “Akad. Ivan Geshov” Bld. / April 16 - May 16. After a series of awards from LensCulture, Gomma Grant, The Zone Magazine, Eyeshot, Obscura Mag and others, Svilen Nachev's photographic series finds its continuation and conclusion in the photo book "The Illusion of Meaning". The book and the project will be presented during the opening, along with a photo installation, to which everyone will be able to add their contribution. https://tinyurl.com/2vet732p
¬ Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau / The Value of Art / interactive installation / Automatic Gallery, 11 Dunav Str. / April 2 - May 17. The Value of Art is a series of interactive experiments dealing with the value of art in a conceptual and pragmatic way. It is a critical reflection on the economy of attention, the relationship between artist, artwork and audience, and the question of monetary and ideological value of the artists and audiences time and dedication. https://automatic.gallery/current/sommerer-mignonneau/
ART TALKS SOFIA
¬ 10 visual stories about contemporary art. Lecture 5: Walter Benjamin - Is photography art and why is this the wrong question? / lecture by Pravdoliub Ivanov / Goethe-Institut, 1 Budapest Street / May 13, 6:30 p.m. “At the beginning, we will briefly focus on probably the most famous essay by Walter Benjamin related to the world of art, namely “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ” (1936), which explores the profound transformation that photography and cinema have had in the field of the visual and meaningful functioning of the artifact. The essay will be an occasion to encounter numerous visual examples of this radical change and the affects in which it manifests itself, shown in the second part of the lecture.” - Pravdoliub Ivanov https://tinyurl.com/ms6pvp6b
PLOVDIV
¬ Petar Nakov / OT / site-specific project / curated by Ivaylo Avramov / Sarieva Gallery, 40 “Otets Paisiy” Str. / April 30 – July 31. The project explores space as a woven structure in which sculpture is not merely volume or material, but a system of interrelations. Its central element is a reinforcing (rebar) structure incorporating forms referring to the Glagolitic letters “o” and “t”. The work on the exhibition by Nakov and Avramov manifests not only as a spatial, site-specific realization within the compact internal volume of 423 × 404 × 355 cm (4.23 × 4.04 × 3.55 m = 60.67 m³), but is also perceived by the gallerists as a portrait of the genesis and character of the gallery. https://tinyurl.com/ujtxwz8z
¬ Colors / group show / Society of Plovdiv Artists, Plovdiv City Art Gallery, Hall 2019, 32 Gladstone Str. / May 5 - June 3. The exhibition brings together over 100 participants working in the fields of painting, graphics, sculpture, drawing, N forms, applied arts, etc. https://tinyurl.com/mtn7pfnr
¬ Exhibition on the terrace / group show / Galeriata - independent art space, 73 “Rayko Daskalov” Str. / May 2 - July 2. By coincidence, every year Galeriata renovates and opens a new exhibition space. This year it is the terrace — located between the church "St. Tsar Boris the Baptist" and the left room of the gallery. The first exhibition for this space features Anna Maria Ivanova, Borislava Berbenko, Veselka Hadzhieva, Dinko Angelov, Dimitar Shopov, Ivanina Derekuvlieva, Ivan Chobanov, Kontan Alkaina, Krasimira Kirova, Miryan Andonov, Mitch Brezunek, Nadezhda Petkova, Svetla Georgieva, Yavor Kostadinov. https://tinyurl.com/bdf225rn
¬ Alina Papazova / Pure Luck / solo show / curated by Valko Chobanov / Galeriata - independent art space, 73 “Rayko Daskalov” Str. / May 8 - June 7. Alina Papazova is a visual artist based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds an MA in Ceramics and Porcelain from New Bulgarian University, where she also earned her PhD in Visual Plastic Arts in 2023. Her practice focuses primarily on ceramics and drawing while also experimenting with textiles, sculpture, 3D, and other media. She explores themes of identity, nostalgia, generational trauma, and pop-cultural imagery, often through speculative narratives that intertwine historical, mythological, and contemporary cultural layers. https://tinyurl.com/4wet2ey5
VARNA
¬ Vesko Velev / On paper / solo show / Varna City Art Gallery, 1 Lyuben Karavelov Str. / April 17 - May 11. The exhibition brings together works in which the artist works with paper as an independent artistic space. Characteristic of this series are the reduced expression, attention to the material and the striving for an image that is built through gesture and accumulation. The exhibition reveals a consistent line in Vesko Velev's work, in which material, form and meaning are in close interaction. https://tinyurl.com/mrym6z95
KAZANLAK
¬ Dora Slavova / Do NOt Touch / solo show / Art Gallery - Kazanlak, Dechko Uzunov House Museum, 24 Knyaz Mirski Str. / April 24 - June 7. Do Not Touch is a visual and sensitive exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our own time: control over human reproduction and the age-old tension between the sexes. Before the public stand 18 anonymous human silhouettes – figures of women seemingly dressed for a wedding. Veiled. Women without faces. 18 human beings with their blackened wombs. We walk between them. We do not know whether they are pregnant or have collectively had an abortion. 18 future single mothers, in whose bodies life is growing – or, on the contrary, has been torn out, put to death. And who, who holds power over that life? – sometimes created unknowingly by another; and over that death? – so often not a desire, not a whim, but a vital necessity, a salvation. https://www.artgallerykazanlak.com/en/exhibitions/dora-slavova-do-not-touch/
¬ Denitsa Milusheva / Can you feel instead of me? / solo show / curated by Galina Dimitrova-Dimova / Art Gallery - Kazanlak, Dechko Uzunov House Museum, 24 Knyaz Mirski Str. / April 16 - June 28. The exhibition addresses the theme of presence and experience in the contemporary world, in which a significant portion of our lives unfolds online. What does this migration of our lives and feelings into the digital sphere actually bring us? Does the constant reporting of our experiences on social media provide the sense of closeness, sharing and support that we need? These are the questions Denitsa Milusheva raises in her current exhibition, which includes one new and two earlier works, each offering different perspectives on the theme. https://tinyurl.com/mr42e5w4
¬ Traces. Tlaka Residency / group show / Art Gallery - Kazanlak, Nenko Balkanski House Museum, 17 "General Radetski" Str. / May 2 - June 14. The project "Tlaka: Community for Socially Engaged Art" is an initiative of an informal group of young artists from Kazanlak. The first edition took place in the period March 22 - 29, 2026 in the village of Srednogorovo. It involved young authors working in the field of contemporary art, who within one week developed their projects in dialogue with the place, its history and social environment. The idea of the residency is based on the concept of "tlaka", which means a traditional form of mutual assistance and voluntary work in the Bulgarian village. In the modern context, this concept has been rethought as a model for joint work, sharing and building a creative community. https://tinyurl.com/mtn35sx7
EUROPE
¬ Veneta Androva, Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, and Rayna Teneva / Federation of Minor Practices / joint project / curated by Martina Yordanova / commissioner Desislava Dimova / Biennale di Venezia - 61st edition / Bulgarian Pavilion, Sala Tiziano / May 9 - November 22. The project transforms the Pavilion into a speculative research laboratory that gathers signals from four films and activates them through a video game as a space for interaction with the audience. Within it, visitors are faced with choices - navigating between different values and possible directions, and thus participating in the construction of a potential shared political future. The exhibition addresses themes such as identity, disinformation, labour, and ecology, and explores forms of coexistence, care, and shared imagination in the context of contemporary crises. Each visitor’s personal choice is understood as a minor practice that influences the “federation” itself - as a space for collective orientation. https://bulgarianpavilionvenice.art/en
Monthly edition by Open Art Foundation
¬ news selection : Desislava Mileva
¬ logo : Nedko Solakov
¬ cover : Petar Nakov, OT, site-specific project, 2026, curated by Ivaylo Avramov, Sarieva Gallery, 40 “Otets Paisiy” Str., Plovdiv, April 30 – July 31.