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 and in Europe.
The monthly bulletin strives to offer an accessible, thoughtful, and quality information about what’s happening on the Bulgarian and European visual arts stage. artnewscafe bulletin started in 2008 as a project of Open Arts Foundation. In July 2022 the bulletin joined Open Art Files as a permanent collaboration offering the monthly bulletin also in English.
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Lexi Fleurs
Untitled, fragment, 2025.
Digital Art
Details
- Description: cover: Lexi Fleurs, Fragment, 2025 in the group show Its Toxic Doubles: Watch Your Feed!, curated by Sophia Grancharova and Philip Stoilov, Goethe-Institut, 1 Budapest Str., Sofia, March 25 - April 30.
SOFIA - PLOVDIV - VARNA - KAZANLAK - ART CAREER
SOFIA
¬ Kamen Startchev / Weather deterioration / solo exhibition / Sofia Arsenal – Museum of contemporary art, 2, Cherni Vrah Blvd. / February 27 - April 13. The exhibition includes the artist’s latest works, created in recent years in his idiosyncratic style: large-format compositions of geometric, graphic elements building momentary states of time and place. It does not offer an apocalyptic existence of humanity today; it does not stigmatise, or condemn, but builds almost invisible states of the here and now in our everyday lives. The artist extracts those details from reality that are devoid of concreteness, functionality or heavy symbolism. Their additional purification in terms of form and colour, and their inclusion in a common compositional rhythm, deprive them of any possibility of subject matter and didactic narrative. https://tinyurl.com/3h8t24wc
¬ Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Being Badly / retrospective exhibition / National Gallery, Kvadrat 500, 1, 19th February St. / March 6 - June 8. Bulgarian Fund for Women, in partnership with the National Gallery, presents the first-ever exhibition of the renowned artist collective Guerrilla Girls in Bulgaria. The retrospective “The Art of Behaving Badly” features the group's most significant works, including the legendary poster "Do Women Have to Be Naked to Get into the Metropolitan Museum?"—a piece that made waves in 1989 by highlighting that while less than 5% of artists in modern art museums were women, 85% of the nude figures depicted were female. The exhibition is part of BFW's multi-year Fund for Art Projects by Women Artists. https://tinyurl.com/4n5u4h8v
¬ Angela Terzieva / solo show / The Vera Nedkova House Museum, 2, 11 August St. / February 28 - May 23. The programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ continues to present contemporary Bulgarian artists in the apartment filled with myriad memories and testimonies of the spirit of the time in which Vera Nedkova lived and created. Alongside Nedkova’s paintings, five canvases by Angela Terzieva are arranged. At first glance incompatible in their pictorial and compositional technique, they seek a dialogical bond concentrated on the female figure and sensitivity. https://nationalgallery.bg/exhibitions/angela-terzieva/
¬ Emil Stoychev / Imagination is my bloodstream / retrospective exhibition / curated by Ivo Milev / Sofia City Art Gallery, 1 Gurko St. / February 27 - May 6. “Emil Stoychev (b. 1935) is one of the most significant figures in Bulgarian fine arts from the second half of the 20th century. This typical urban man and artist began as a landscape artist. From the mid-1970s onwards, the figural characters that had sporadically populated his landscapes and interiors up to now would become dominant, with a radically altered role—they would become the main organizing centre around which the “plot” of his compositional decisions would develop. Emil Stoychev would transform into a narrative, allegorical artist, a quality he has retained to this day. The painting begins to turn into a rebus, a semantic field, with the psychology of human figures being of decisive interest.” - Ivo Milev https://tinyurl.com/4e3v7hk4
¬ I, the Artist. 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Stefan Gatsev / retrospective exhibition / Sofia City Art Gallery, 1 Gurko St. / April 15 - May 25. The exhibition includes nearly 80 works and chronologically recreates the creative path of the artist Stefan Gatsev (1935–1986). The main core of his pictorial heritage was created in the 1960s and 1970s. From this period, fundamental for his work are large-format figurative compositions. After the mid-1970s, St. Gatsev devoted himself to decorative-monumental art, and his pictorial work was reduced to more chamber formats, in which the main role is played by the line - form-building, precise, but at the same time expressive. https://tinyurl.com/4f668asn
¬ Vaska Emanuilova and Paris / retrospective exhibition / Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, 15 Yanko Sakazov Blvd. / February 25 - April 20. This exhibition presents Vaska Emanouilova’s story of her trip to the “city of art” and the impact that her six-month stay in Paris had on her entire body of work. The starting point of this exhibition is the text that Vaska created about this city and about her only trip outside the country, in 1939. She describes in it the interesting story of how she received a scholarship for specialized study in Paris, connected with sculpting of a portrait bust of Madame Baelen – the wife of the first secretary of the French legation in Sofia, Jean Baelen. An essential part of the exhibition is the installation with video, sound, and objects by Ralitsa Georgieva, which attempts to present Vaska Emanouilova’s impressions and enrich the story of this important journey of the artist by immersing the audience in her personal memories and the spirit of Paris of the late 1930s. https://tinyurl.com/ytcbwu4t
¬ Six Winters... One Summer / group exhibition / curated by Stanislav Pamukchiev, Plamen Monevski, Elitsa Terzieva / Union of Bulgarian Artists, 6 Shipka St. / 3 - April 26. The curatorial project focuses, in the words of Stanislav Pamukchiev, on “antinomies: day - night, winter - summer, north - south, light - darkness, earth - sky, active - passive, male - female. The theme rediscovers the contents of mythological ritual, of ritual following the cyclical rotation into infinity, of cosmic and natural cycles, of the eternal beginning and end - birth, apogee, dying and new birth, of the understanding of life as a closed circle of constantly recurring changes.” The authors Nikolay Maistorov, Zahari Kamenov, Emil Popov, Milko Bozhkov, Stanislav Pamukchiev, Svilen Blazhev, Ivan Rusev, Chavdar Petrov, Ziyatin Nuriev, Veselin Nachev, Stiliyan Atanasov, Ivo Bistrichki have been invited to participate in the exhibition. https://tinyurl.com/4rfstva6
¬ Vesselin Zografov / Feel her tears / multimedia exhibition / Union of Bulgarian Artists, Rayko Aleksiev Hall, 125 G. S. Rakovski St. / March 21 - April 17. The author's project examines the theme of sadness, refracted through historical events - from the murder of Rayko Aleksiev in 1944 to the present day. The main idea of the exhibition is to place the visitor in a situation of internal conversation. To challenge him or her to delve into his/her own knowledge, understandings and memories in an attempt to get as close as possible to realizing the idea of belonging and empathy for the environment surrounding him. Through the presented historical events, in the silence of interconnections, the question arises: Where are we at the moment and how do we function as a social organism? https://tinyurl.com/38mx3vvb
¬ Its Toxic Doubles: Watch Your Feed! / group show / curated by Sophia Grancharova and Philip Stoilov / Goethe-Institut, 1 Budapest Str. / March 25 - April 30. The exhibition is an artistic reaction to the mechanisms of hybrid warfare: attenuating information into a chaotic multitude of viral narratives; arousing confusion and panic in public opinion by staging spectacular and sham media simulations; frustrating the possibility of an integral and paramount concept of truth that would be practically achievable for the politically engaged civil subject. Eight young Bulgarian artists - Lexi Fleurs, Slava George, Yanitsa Fendulova, Marina Genova, Nikola Stoyanov, Nikola Andreev, Nikola Tsvetanov, Kyril Buhowski - show their authentic reactions, turning the exhibition into a performative factor in the context of hybrid warfare. https://tinyurl.com/3wppzyec
¬ Krasimira Butseva / Cartography of Absences / solo show / curated by Danny Radichkov / ICA - Sofia, 134 Vasil Levski Blvd. / March 28 - April 27. The exhibition Cartography of Absence by Krasimira Butseva is part of the BAZA Award for Contemporary Art, received by the artist in 2022. It presents a multidisciplinary visual reflection on the inherited absences and gaps in memory linked to Bulgaria's recent history of political violence. The project includes photography, video, and photobooks, developed through archival research conducted over the past decade. Butseva’s work continues to interrogate the role of art as a form of preservation, reflection, and resistance against forgetting, creating spaces for dialogue around histories excluded from official archives and dominant historical narratives. https://fb.me/e/6gQatyLmx
¬ Kalina Dimitrova & Krasimir Terziev / Time Twisted Around a Place, Twisted Around Time / joint show / Credo Bonum Gallery, 2 Slavyanska str. / March 20 - April 12. Kalina Dimitrova and Krasimir Terziev present scenes and images that are painfully familiar at first glance: abandoned habitats; “wild” vegetation; a fragment of a cinema auditorium, an emblematic work of 20th century art history; forest landscapes - pieces of places and time that refer to other places and other times. We are at a stage when seemingly everything we have known about the world has ceased to be of any use to us. With this exhibition the authors invite us to forget for a moment what we think we know, the easy and quick conclusions, the shortcuts. None of those will be of any use in the labyrinth of assemblages, objects and projections. https://tinyurl.com/2ymjk9m5
¬ The Light in the Darkness: Yonko's Path / retrospective show / curated by Tsvetelina Atanasova / Credo Bonum Gallery, 2 Slavyanska str. / April 16 - May 9. The exhibition explores the life and works of Bulgarian artist Yonko Vasilev (1977 - 2023). Yonko’s art transcends traditional boundaries, blending life and creativity in a way that invites viewers to connect with the deeper meanings embedded in his work. Through a powerful narrative of light and darkness, collaboration, and the transformative nature of art, this exhibition honors Yonko’s legacy and invites audiences into the heart of his artistic soul. https://tinyurl.com/3z4fpnv9
¬ Pravdoliub Ivanov / The truth about the truth / solo show / Sarieva Gallery @ DOT, Sofia, 46, Bratya Miladinovi str., Women’s Market / March 13 - May 10. The exhibition provides a key to understanding the artist's work and presents important but unseen works created in Bulgaria in different periods between 1998 and 2024. Although they have so far remained aloof from public debate, these artworks carry messages that resonate particularly strongly in the moment in which we live. The exhibition is named after the work Truth About the Truth - a mirrored verbal absurdism pointing to the commonality between such disparate works, whose connection is the inversion of our notions of the obvious and a provocation to the stereotypes through which we often view the world and everyday life. https://tinyurl.com/mmc527v8
¬ Clemens Wolf / Tension / solo show / +359 Gallery, 13A Galitchitsa Str. / March 28 - June 15. “The Viennese artist Clemens Wolf is widely recognized for his innovative artistic approach, which uniquely blends material elements and conceptual models. His artistic research unfolds through various forms, including sculpture, painting, and installation. One of the distinctive features of his art is the use of parachutes, which Wolf recovers, transforms, and shapes into imposing sculptures or painted surfaces. For the artist, the parachute is not just a practical object but a symbol of the tension between the desire for freedom (ascent) and the weight of gravity (descent).” https://tinyurl.com/ymjh7fcu
¬ Clemens Wolf / Plus, Minus / solo show / Charta Gallery, 12 Vrabcha Str. / March 29 - April 29. Parallel to the exhibition at +359 Gallery, Charta Gallery presents the second part of Clemens Wolf's project. The two shows are not presented as separate concepts but rather as two symbiotic hemispheres harmoniously connected. Both explore tension from different perspectives: while Tension focuses on physical and spatial aspects, Plus, Minus investigates it as an internal dynamic, a web of relationships emerging through color contrasts and formal interconnections. https://tinyurl.com/ymjh7fcu
¬ Iglika Hristova / Nautilus: the ocean under a microscope / solo show / curated by Marie-Laure Desjardins / Arosita Gallery, 12B Vrabcha Str. / April 7 - 21. Iglika Hristova explores the influence of the microcosm on the creative processes in contemporary art. In order to establish an artistic dialogue between drawing and the microcosm, the artist collaborates with various scientists in the field of biology. Inspired by the classic "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne, this exhibition immerses the viewer in the vast world of the ocean inaccessible to the human eye and magnified 400 times. This is not only the macroworld and the beautiful landscapes of coral reefs, but also the delicate microscopic life that gently vibrates underwater, and its dimensions imperceptible to the human eye do not prevent it from being of enormous key importance for the fragile balance of ecosystems in the ocean. https://tinyurl.com/2hhudt73
¬ Nora Ampova / Gökotta / solo show / Little Bird Place Gallery, 7 "11th August" str. / April 10 - May 4. “Perhaps guided by a longing for the lightness of childhood, I have chosen collage as my primary means of expression for this exhibition. The technique is both simple and boundless, and the process has led me through states of transformation. A therapeutic awakening with a peculiar melody. What is humanity’s imprint on nature and have we drifted too far from its essence? Gökotta is my narrative—an invitation to journey inward, and beyond.” - Nora Ampova https://tinyurl.com/33ah26tu
¬ Marion Safriouine / Hello, today you have a free day / solo show / Depoo Gallery, 12 Vrabcha Str. / April 2 - 17. Marion Safriouine is a contemporary visual artist from Marseille, France. She works in the field of painting and photography. For her, these means of expression are fields of endless experimentation. That is why, in her creative process, the leading place is occupied by the constant play with photo collages, the overlaying or removal of paint, the expressiveness of both colors and black, which highlight multiple layers and meanings. She arrived in Sofia at the invitation of Visionary for a 2-week creative residency and immediately embodied herself in the role of a tourist, armed with a camera and free time, to get to know and explore the city… https://tinyurl.com/mr3sxfj5
¬ Who’s grafting now ! / group show / curated by Alessandro Vincentelli / CCA Toplocentrala Gallery - Cube, 5 Emil Bersinski Str. / April 5 - May 4. Who’s Grafting Now! seeks to honour the multifaceted nature of graft, shedding light on hidden and precarious labour while asking critical questions about who does what. This exhibition examines the dynamic ways labour— particularly female labour—shapes our world. It challenges us to re-evaluate the value assigned to different forms of work and celebrates the strength and creativity intrinsic to every act of graft. With works by Jasmina Cibic, Harun Farocki, Sanja Iveković, Rada Mateva, Antonio Riello, Pilvi Takala, Voin De Voin, Doreida Xhogu. https://toplocentrala.bg/en/program/visual/koy-bachka-sega
¬ Boryana Pandova / Filth / solo exhibition / curated by Nadzhezda Pavlova / Synthesis Gallery, 55 “Vasil Levski” Blvd / March 11 - May 6. The current exhibition presents the latest project of Boryana Pandova’s Objects of Inattention series, which she has been developing for the past twenty years. In Filth, Boryana maps the randomly-formed compositions created by objects rolling around the streets of Sofia. Taking on the role of a forensic criminologist (minus the crime), she uses sticky foil to take ‘prints’ from the city’s streets along the routes her everyday takes her on. Filth orbits around the notion of objets trouvés (‘found objects’), where everyday objects, marked by their natural surroundings, turn into art through their subjective placement within the frame. https://tinyurl.com/36e24dx7
¬ Kaloyan Iliev – Kokimoto / Protégé of muses, who in a dark connivance are my greatest illusions / solo show / One Gallery, 1 Diakon Ignatij Str. / April 1 - 24. “Hey, I am a protégé of muses, who in a dark conspiracy are my best illusions – for the prince and for freedom”. This stanza from the poem “Draft for a letter to the beloved” by the late Miryana Basheva, although changed for the needs of the exhibition, became the main inspiration for the creation of the works. The ideas of liberation from the man and the declaration of the "uniqueness" of the female gender have been rethought and reworked by me as a man and as an author of the exhibition. I directed the energy of this very important moment in the poem towards myself in order to extract my personal problematics.” - Kaloyan Iliev – Kokimoto https://tinyurl.com/bdf5a4ny
¬ Run / group show / curated by Nikola Tsvetanov / HOSTGALLERY, 102 “Akad. Ivan Geshov” Bld. / April 2 - 30. Built in two parts, “Run & Play”, the exhibition presents works by 18 contemporary artists from a total of 7 European countries. Regarding the idea of the exhibition, Nikola Tsvetanov shares that he views the creative process not only as an artistic act of creating a work and “playing” with materials, but also as a continuous impact of the already created work on the artist’s work. In the first part, “Run”, can be seen works by Anton Terziev (BG), Desislava Unger (AT/BG), Pavel Lefterov (BG), Michaela Lakova (BG), Voin de Voin (BG), Mihail Trifonov (BG), Martijn de Gelle (PL), Sara Postolle (NL), Sofia Dimova (BG), Virginia Vluchkova (BG), Denis Spasov (BG), Deyan Petkov (BG), Géraldine Daniel (FR), Miloš Mozdik (SK), Mitch Brezounek (FR, BG), Victor Semempeev (MK), Ana Semempeeva (MK) and Nikola Tsvetanov (BG). https://fb.me/e/2ZPM08lZb
¬ Symbiosis / group exhibition / National Museum of Natural History, 1 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd. / March 13 - May 13. "Symbiosis" is an interdisciplinary project that unites the work of students from the Department of Fashion Design at the National Academy of Arts and the Faculty of Biology of Sofia University "St. Kl. Ohridski", with the aim of exploring and creating a bridge between art and nature. The main message of the exhibition is tied to one of the leading aspects of sustainable fashion, namely biodiversity. Fashion students also focus on the development of clothing with minimal waste. The project includes the creation of fashion garments inspired by exhibits of the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which will be exhibited at several locations in the museum, with installations of mannequins and information boards. https://tinyurl.com/2p9r546r
¬ YO\KO+INA / Design versus Contemporary Art / joint show / Doza Gallery, 52 Tsar Samuil Str. / April 7 - 12. “Under the title Design versus Contemporary Art, the two artists are not seeking conflict, but rather examining the fragile balance between the pragmatic and the conceptual, between aesthetic utility and aesthetic autonomy. The project uses the strategies of contemporary art to comment on the functionality of design – and vice versa: it employs the formal language of design to pose questions typical of contemporary art.” - Desislava Zafirova, curator https://tinyurl.com/58v6dmd3
¬ This exhibition would have been about kitsch / group show / curated by Andreya Gandeva / KO-OP, 62 Dimitar Petkov Str. / April 3 - 30. The exhibition aims to trace various socio-cultural policies, processes, and trends that have left lasting traces in all aspects of life in Bulgaria after the changes. From the flooding of the market with cheap goods labeled "luxury", through architectural anomalies, visual urban irregularities, to ways of human behavior and presentation in public space. With the participation of Veronika Desova, Sofia Grancharova, Aaron Roth, Kalin Serapionov, Lachezar Boyadzhiev. https://tinyurl.com/y6kwxf66
¬ Nevelin Ivanov / You will not see / solo show / curated by Andreya Gandeva / UniCredit Bulbank Gallery, 7 Sveta Nedelya Sq. / March 26 - April 14. The classical art education at the Academy requires long hours of drawing and painting. At a certain point, however, the conventional stops responding to certain artistic demands. The large amount of sketches, studies and drawings of naked bodies bring a sense of stasis and repetitiveness, even stagnation. This of course leaves lasting marks in the overall perception of art. And in the particular case of Nevelin Ivanov - a great desire to break away from the already established. The artist neither ignores nor denies what he has learned, only rethinks it. In this way, he symbolically completes a cycle and allows himself to go in a new direction. For nothing ends definitively, rather it is transformed and assumes a new shape. https://tinyurl.com/2stmk87n
PLOVDIV
¬ Art Positive - 18th edition / Transparent / group show / Art Today Association, City Art Gallery - Plovdiv, Kapana Gallery, 29 “Rayko Daskalov” Str. / April 8 - May 8. Transparency as a theme in art offers endless possibilities for exploration and expression. It can be viewed literally – as a physical property of materials – or metaphorically – as a symbol of openness, truth, or vulnerability. The transparent reveals, yet also conceals. It creates a space for interplay between the visible and the hidden, a transition between reality and imagination. Artists interpret the theme through various techniques – from layers of paint in painting to the effects of light in installations, from objects that refract light to videos that analyze the essence of revealing and concealing. https://fb.me/e/2ByjZM1vh
¬ Colors / group show / Society of Plovdiv Artists, City Art Gallery - Plovdiv, Hall 2019, 32 “Gladstone” Str. / April 3 - May 6. Dozens of its members are participating in this year's edition of the spring exhibition of the Society of Plovdiv Artists. The exhibition presents over 100 works from all areas of fine art - painting, graphics, sculpture, drawing, digital printing, N forms. https://fb.me/e/cUcio9kEI
VARNA
¬ In Rembrandt's Mirror / interdisciplinary project / Varna City Art Gallery, 1 "Lyuben Karavelov" Str. / April 8 - 28. “In Rembrandt’s Mirror” offers the audience the opportunity to see how each era forms its own image and understanding of Rembrandt. Today, Rembrandt is one of the most famous and studied graphic artists, but this was not always the case. In 1669, he died in Amsterdam, far from the peak of his fame, bankrupt and buried in an unmarked grave. Rejected by critics of the time for his lack of idealized classical perception and “illiterate” realism, Rembrandt was forgotten, until in the 1830s, French artists rediscovered him as an innovator and rebel who violated the conservative canons of the Academy. Thus was born the myth of Rembrandt – the misunderstood genius and the greatest outsider. The exhibition is a project of the New Bulgarian University and is aimed at young audiences. https://tinyurl.com/2rwupk4r
¬ Petko Petkov-Lomski / The Paper / solo exhibition / Varna City Art Gallery, “Georgi Velchev” studio, 8 Gen. Radko Dimitriev St. / March 18 - April 17. The artist’s new works were created in the last year and are united around the title “The Paper”, indicating his preferred media. They are realized in medium formats such as painting, watercolors and pastel drawings, depicting the author’s characteristic deformed faces, often female, with elongated shapes, captured in moments of transformation. The variability of the human face and figure - a recognizable sign in Petko Lomski’s art, is recreated in expressive solutions, in which the colors seem to melt, and the outlines are just a memory of past states. https://tinyurl.com/rx6hpmj2
KAZANLAK
¬ …and I continued to paint alone. 150th anniversary of the birth of Elena Karamihaylova / retrospective exhibition / Art Gallery Kazanlak, 9 Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii Str. / March 27 - August 17. Elena Karamihaylova is the first truly prominent female artist in Bulgarian art history, but unfortunately, like dozens of other examples, her work remains poorly known to the public and has not yet found its researchers. Her life and creative path pose many questions that have not yet found their answers. Restoring the story of her personality and legacy is a complex and laborious research task, the immediate results of which are contained in this exhibition. https://tinyurl.com/3fuxnuy4
¬ Including Everything / Darik Radio Collection / group exhibition / Art Gallery - Kazanlak, Dechko Uzunov House Museum, 24 Knyaz Mirski Str. / April 10 - May 11. Art provokes and predicts, and it is precisely this quality that unites, creating the feeling of healing actions and activities that "include everything" in "inclusion". Such are the intentions of this exhibition. To reveal exactly that creative sensitivity of the artist, who understands and captures the processes in society through the need to point out and name them, and with this action to take responsibility, presenting the world as it is now. With the participation of Alla Georgieva, Andrey Daniel, Valentin Stefanov, Velizar Krstich, Kolyo Karamfilov, Krasimir Karabadzhakov, Mark Pospih, Nina Kovacheva. https://tinyurl.com/5cxawxb6
ART CAREER
¬ Open call for a critical text in the field of visual arts / Goethe-Institut Bulgaria and Cultural Center of Sofia University / Deadline for applications June 10. The competition is open to participants up to 35 years of age with an interest in the field of critical writing for contemporary visual arts. Applications are made by sending two critical texts in Bulgarian: a review of a specific exhibition shown in Bulgaria and a more general overview text on current processes in the art scene in Bulgaria that occurred during the three-month application period March 10 - June 10. https://tinyurl.com/mtjvpmvt
Monthly edition by Open Art Foundation
¬ news selection : Desislava Mileva
¬ logo : Nedko Solakov
¬ cover : Lexi Fleurs, Fragment, 2025 in the group show Its Toxic Doubles: Watch Your Feed!, curated by Sophia Grancharova and Philip Stoilov, Goethe-Institut, 1 Budapest Str., Sofia, March 25 - April 30.