About
The Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia was founded in June 1995. It is a private, non-governmental organization, an association of curators, artists and theorists. It is dedicated to the study, understanding, presentation and practice of late 20th and early 21st century visual arts. The aim is to restore and enable the future development of open dialogue between cultures and art scenes. The history of ICA-Sofia is rooted in the professional relationships between friends who, after 1989, shared common ideas about the changed dynamics and appearance of art.
Founding members are the art critics Iara Boubnova, Maria Vassileva (member until 2012), Boris Danailov (member until 1997) and the artists Luchezar Boyadjiev, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Kiril Prashkov and Nedko Solakov, the lawyer Vesselin Tsochev. Later, cultural researcher Alexander Kyosev (1999 - 2017) and cultural anthropologist Ivaylo Ditchev (1999 - 2006) became members of ICA. In 2002, artists Kalin Serapionov and Mariela Gemisheva joined the group, and a few years later - Ivan Moudov (until 2020), Krassimir Terziev and Stefan Nikolaev. Among the newest members are the artists Aksiniya Peicheva, Maria Nalbantova, Martin Penev, Radostin Sedevchev, Sophia Grancharova and Dimitar Solakov.
Since the beginning of the 90s, the members of ICA-Sofia focused their attention in two main directions. On the one hand, they work actively to build a context oriented to the leading trends in the art world, and on the other hand, their efforts are aimed at inclusion in the international artistic exchange.
Since then the Institute of Contemporary Art has had a defining role in the image that Bulgarian contemporary art has created on the global art scene. This presence has been a fully realized goal since the late 1980s, when some of its members are among the leading young artists and curators. Since then, their long biography as authors began and their works have been shown in various international exhibitions. Among them, it is worth mentioning the Third (1992) and Fourth (1995) Istanbul Biennale, as in the first the curatorial team and selector (Lachezar Boyadzhiev and Iara Boubnova) and one of the authors (Nedko Solakov) were among the founding members, and in the last all of the participants were already active members of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
In an attempt to offer an alternative to the "catch-up to the West" or "one-sided translation activity" of Western artistic trends and conventions, symptomatic of the Eastern Bloc countries, in 1999 the Institute of Contemporary Art extended an invitation to some of the star-friends of the young generation of artists - nomads. The "Locally Interested" initiative is conceived as a personal meeting of the authors with the public and the local context of Sofia, deprived of the support of institutions, and to some extent it is a risk for the authors themselves, who will "appear" on the Eastern stage. The exhibition features Rirkrit Tiravanija, Pipilotti Rist, Oleg Kulik, Douglas Gordon, Peter Kogler, Uri Tazig, and Nedko Solakov, on whose idea the exhibition was realised with the curator Iara Boubnova.
In 2003-2006, together with the Center for Academic Studies in Sofia, ICA-Sofia realised the project "Visual Seminar". The three-year program included exhibitions, discussions, residencies, public actions and a series of publications. The focus was the contemporary visual culture of the urban environment in transition. The "Seminar" was developed in several parts and is a partnership project with Relations, a project of the Federal Foundation for Culture, Germany.
To this day, the Institute of Contemporary Art continues to be one of the most active non-governmental organizations working with contemporary art. In its nomadic years, the Institute for Contemporary Art gravitated around the exhibition space of "Ata - Rai", later "ATA - Center for Contemporary Art", and in 2003 it was renamed "ATA - Center / ICA - Sofia" and opened with the exhibition of RASSIM "Corrections" 2. Since August 2009, the institute has had its own gallery at 134 Vasil Levski Blvd. in Sofia.
In 2017 and 2019, ICA-Sofia launched the School4Artists educational program, which included seminars on history and theory of contemporary art, practical workshops, research projects, discussions and public presentations of completed projects. The program organised a number of events in which a wide range of established artists, curators and critics from the country and abroad took part. Some of the participants in School4Artist are also the newest members of the institute.
In 2022, the Institute of Contemporary Art was a partner and participant of the international biennial for contemporary art Manifesta 14 (2022), Prishtina, Kosovo; and documenta 15, Kassel, Germany under Composting Knowledge, part of ruangrupa's Lumbung project.
Among the retrospective exhibitions of the Institute of Contemporary Art, reflecting the activities, development of the artists, participations, discussions and publications, but also the leading trends in contemporary art, on the one hand, and on the other, its perception in Bulgaria, are: "Neither a Black Cube, Nor a White Box' (2006), SCAG; "Our 20 Years in Contemporary Art" (2010), ICA-Sofia; “25 Years and 5 Themes Later. ICA Retrospective - Sofia" (2020), National Gallery, Sofia. Some of the audio guides, recordings of presentations, discussions and publications are available on the website of the Institute of Contemporary Art and in the bilingual database Vector | ICA - Sofia.
Gallery
Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia
Self-splaining (a Triumph of Empathy), 2022.
Installation
Details
- Description: Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia, Self-splaining (a Triumph of Empathy), 2022, Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo
Artists: Iskra Blagoeva, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Mitch Brezounek, Mariela Gemisheva, Sophia Grancharova, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Nikola Mihov, Ivan Moudov, Maria Nalbantova, Elena Nazarova, Stefan Nikolaev, Aksiniya Peicheva, Martin Penev, Kiril Prashkov, Antoni Rayzhekov, Aaron Roth, Valentina Sciarra, Radostin Sedevchev, Kalin Serapionov, Dimitar Solakov, Nedko Solakov, Krassimir Terziev, Dessislava Terzieva, Miryana Todorova, Alexander Valchev.
Part of Manifesta 14 Prishtina – Western Balkans project.
Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia
INSITU-INSTITUTE, 2020.
Installation
Details
- Description: The project transforms the space of the Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia into an interaction field for communication between the artists: Aksiniya Peycheva, Sophia Grancharova, Maria Nalbantova, Martin Penev, and Radostin Sedevchev.
Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia
INSITU-INSTITUTE, 2020.
Installation
Details
- Description: The project transforms the space of the Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia into an interaction field for communication between the artists: Aksiniya Peycheva, Sophia Grancharova, Maria Nalbantova, Martin Penev, and Radostin Sedevchev.
Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia
Locally Interested, 1999.
Installation
Details
- Description: Travelling artists: Douglas Gordon (Glasgow), Peter Kogler (Vienna), Oleg Kulik (Moscow), Pipilotti Rist (Zurich), Nedko Solakov (Sofia), Rirkrit Tiravanija (New York), Uri Tzaig (Tel Aviv).
National Gallery for Foreign Art ( today Square 500), Sofia.
Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia
Locally Interested, 1999.
Installation
Details
- Description: Travelling artists: Douglas Gordon (Glasgow), Peter Kogler (Vienna), Oleg Kulik (Moscow), Pipilotti Rist (Zurich), Nedko Solakov (Sofia), Rirkrit Tiravanija (New York), Uri Tzaig (Tel Aviv).
National Gallery for Foreign Art ( today Square 500), Sofia.