Galleria Continua is pleased to announce Wrong Material, a new solo exhibition by Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov.

Now a firmly established figure on the international art scene, Solakov shows his work at many of the most important exhibition events, invariably arousing curiosity and causing a stir with his exquisitely ironic and provocative work. Who, for instance, does not remember the performance installation he produced for the 49th Venice Biennale, A Life (Black & White), in which a room was repeatedly and uninterruptedly painted in black and white? Or his work for the most recent Venice Biennale, Discussion (Property), 2007? Here the viewer’s attention is drawn to a Kalashnikov hung on the wall; through video, texts and drawings, Solakov recounts and investigates the long-running dispute between the former Soviet Union and Bulgaria in relation to the production and sale of Kalashnikovs. But undoubtedly the most emblematic example is his recent contribution to Documenta 12 in Kassel. The artist was given an entire room and invited to show Fears, a group of 99 new drawings, and an older work entitled Top Secret (1989–90). This installation, which consists of a file box with 179 drawings, collages and photos and was created immediately after the political changes in Bulgaria, reveals the artist’s youthful collaboration with the Bulgarian secret services, ended by Solakov himself in 1983. The artist made this voluntary gesture of disclosure, still quite unique in post-socialist Europe, without being pressured in any way. There are still no public documents attesting to his collaboration; there is just the work, which was shown for the first time in Sofia in the spring of 1990. Eighteen years after the collapse of the regime, Bulgaria’s secret service archives are still closed.

While Dead-lock stories (2005) – the narrative path animated by tiny creatures and surreal stories that Solakov produced at Galleria Continua in 2005 – occupied the space devoted to one-year-long site-specific projects, on this occasion the scope of the artist’s work is much broader, and he is making use of the whole gallery to show a series of new sculptural and installation works.

For the first floor Solakov commissioned the production of 7 sculptures, to be made with different materials (terracotta, alabaster, metal, bricks, newspapers). The artist decided which objects should be produced, then designed them and chose where they should be sited. However, he deliberately chose to have nothing to do with their production, delegating this task to his wife and to the gallery. The lack of control over the objects gave him the detachment he needed in order to subsequently engage with them afresh in an immediate and spontaneous fashion, almost as if they were ready-mades. The work takes on its finished form in this final phase, when the sculptures, the space they are sited in and the artist’s feelings and contingent state of mind converge into a single direction, giving life to a story.

I Love Them, the large installation Solakov has conceived specifically for the ground floor of the gallery (a former cinema-theatre), recreates the magically dark and silent atmosphere typical of a cinema when a film is being screened. Seven video stations – non-synchronized and using a variety of technical means (large screen, wall projection, suspended screen, plasma, etc.) – are distributed around the space, creating an alternation of points of light and colour that appear and disappear. The work can be grasped in its entirety by viewing the seven screenings simultaneously. Each screening represents a film in ideal terms, or to be more precise, the sensations experienced by the artist in seeing a certain section of that film. The films in question are seven of Solakov’s favourites (the artist is a knowledgeable enthusiast), chosen from a range of genres: City Lights, The Big Lebowski, Rocco Fickt Rio, The Seven Samurai, Fawlty Towers, Amadeus and Amarcord.

At the same time as the Wrong Material show, Nedko Solakov is also producing an installation entitled amadoodles for the Castello di Ama. This will be the eighth permanent work for the prestigious collection of the Castello di Ama per l’Arte Contemporanea, a project started in 2000 in conjunction with Galleria Continua. For further information: Castello di Ama per l’Arte Contemporanea, tel. 0577 746031, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Since the early 90s Nedko Solakov (b. Tcherven Briag, Bulgaria, 1957), who lives and works in Sofia, has contributed to a large number of group exhibitions in Europe and the United States. He has shown at Aperto ’93 (Venice Biennale); at the 48th, 49th, 50th and 52nd Venice Biennale; at the 3rd, 4th and 9th Istanbul Biennial; at São Paulo ’94; at Manifesta 1, Rotterdam; at the 2nd and 4th Gwangju Biennial; at the 5th Lyons Biennial; at Sonsbeek 9, Arnhem; at the 4th and 5th Cetinje Biennial and the 1st Lodz Biennial; at the 7th Sharjah Biennial, Arab Emirates; at the 3rd Tirana Biennial; at the 2nd Seville Biennial; at the 2nd Moscow Biennial; and at Documenta 12. Recently he has had solo shows at the Museu do Chiado, Lisbon; De Appel, Amsterdam; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona; and at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. In 2003–05 he had a retrospective A 12 1/3 (and even more) Year Survey, at the Casino Luxembourg, Rooseum Malmo and the O.K. Centrum in Linz.

Forthcoming solo exhibition: A Group Show, 29 September–17 November, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia.

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