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Past Exhibitions
Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia (26)
The Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia is dedicated to the study, understanding, promotion and practice of the visual arts of the late twentieth and early twenty first century, to the reestablishment and furthering of the dilogue between cultures and art scenes, to the search for an open art dialogue with everyone.
The history of ICA is rooted in the professional partnership between friends who after 1989 shared the vision to open up and develop the Bulgarian contemporary art scene.
The goals of ICA-Sofia are focused on the development of the contemporary art scene in Bulgaria in relation to the world at large - audience. Primary objective is the constant deepening and strehgthening of relations to the international art world - in a two directional and reciprocal manner by triggering and fascilitating a two-way flow of artists, curators and critics, projects, etc. to not only "take" your/our home out into the world, but also to bring "the world" back home.
The spectrum of ICA activities consists of international and local projects for shows, publications, conferences, seminars, short term educational activities, lecture series, etc.
The Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia is a private, non-profit NGO, an association of curators, artists and cultural theoreticians founded in 1995 by Luchezar Boyadjiev, artist; Maria Vassileva, curator (member until 2012); Boris Danailov, curator (member until 1997); Iara Boubnova, curator; Pravdoliub Ivanov, artist; Kiril Prashkov, artist; Nedko Solakov, artist; Vesselin Tzotchev, lawyer (member until 1997).
Members of ICA-Sofia became: in 1999 Alexander Kiossev, culturologist (member until 2017), and Ivaylo Ditchev, cultural anthropologist (member until 2006); in 2002 Kalin Serapionov, artist and Mariela Gemisheva, artist; in 2006 Ivan Moudov, artist (member until 2020); in 2007 Krassimir Terziev, artist, Stefan Nikolaev, artist; in 2021 Aksinia Peycheva, artist, Maria Nalbantova, artist, Martin Penev, artist, Radostin Sedevchev, artist and Sophia Grancharova, artist.
Chair of the board of ICA-Sofia is Pravdoliub Ivanov. Kalin Serapionov is executive director.
ICA-Sofia Gallery (123)
The opening of the ICA–Sofia Gallery was made possible by the dedicated conviction of Slava Nakovska and Nedko Solakov that it was not only absolutely necessary to have the gallery but that it was also possible to realize it in the rather thin and amnesic Bulgarian cultural space and especially by their strategic and persistent efforts on its materialization.
Current Exhibition
- from Nov 7, 2024
- till Dec 8, 2024
- Opening: Thursday, 07.11., 6-8 pm
Current Exhibition
- from Sep 28, 2024
- till Sep 28, 2024
- Opening: September 23, Monday, 6-8 p.m.
- Curator(s) Katia Anguelova and Lucrezia Cippitelli
Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia рresents:
Unexpected Care
Group exhibition featuring moving image artworks in public space
April 28 – May 31, Sofia, Bulgaria
Working hours: 17:00 - 00:00
Tsarigradsko Shose blvd. – Eagle’s Bridge, Tsarevets Underpass
Segment 1: April 28 – May 7
Segment 2: May 10 – May 19
Segment 3: May 22 – May 31
Unexpected Care is a group exhibition organised by the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia. It will take place in April 2023 on the underpass of Eagle’s Bridge, a primary public location in the city centre of Sofia. For the duration of one month, the exhibition will feature 9 video artworks from local and international artists. Each work will be presented continuously for ten days in one of three identical abandoned stores which are next to one another.
Current Exhibition
- from Apr 28, 2023
- till May 31, 2023
- Opening: Working hours: 17:00 - 00:00
- Venue Tsarigradsko Shose blvd. – Eagle’s Bridge, Tsarevets Underpass
- Curated by Vasil Vladimirov
- Artists Veneta Androva, Alžběta Bačíková, Elisa Jule Braun, Open Group (Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Anton Varga), Ivelina Ivanova, Pauline Curnier Jardin and Feel Good Сooperative, Adrian Paci, Moritz Stumm, Driant Zeneli
Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia is pleased to be a partner in the Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Project: Co-Producing Common Space and Shaping Formations of Solidarity in the Western Balkans and beyond, co-funded by the European Union.
As part of the evolving, multidimensional, across borders activities within the whole project, the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia will be organizing events both in Sofia and in Prishtina. Loosely described as “visual talks”, these will encompass theoretical, visual and critical “voices”, off and on-line contributions, panel discussions and exhibition displays by a multitude of contributors from the region and beyond.
Artists: Veneta Androva, Neno Belchev, Mitch Brezounek, Marina Genova, Nadezhda Oleg-Lyahova, Kalin Serapionov, Dimitar Shopov, Kamen Stoyanov, Samuil Stoyanov, Krassimir Terziev.
Curators: Kalin Serapionov, Krassimir Terziev.
What we propose in this programme is a highly subjective and fragmented view on current practices in moving image in the Bulgarian art scene. We focused on practices that show affinity with speculative narratives - narratives that not just record what is in front of the cinematic eye, but also capture all the ghosts that are unreachable by the apparatus, thus projecting speculative views that intend not merely to describe, but to transform the world.
Current Exhibition
- from Nov 6, 2020
- till Dec 31, 2020
- Venue Blinkvideo.de
The Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia is honouring its 25th anniversary with an exhibition presenting old and new works, as well as works made especially by its members Ivan Moudov, Kalin Serapionov, Kiril Prashkov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Mariela Gemisheva, Nedko Solakov, Pravdoliub Ivanov, and Stefan Nikolaev.
ICA – Sofia is one of the longest existing and active non-governmental organizations engaged with visual arts in Bulgaria. Its history is closely linked to the development of our art-scene in the last decades, its self-education, opening up and positioning in the world, with some of its most visible manifestations in both the local and the international context. The institute was founded informally in 1993 after the first in many years group “national” participation curated by Luchezar Boyadjiev in the 3rd Istanbul Biennial “The Production of Cultural Differences”, 1992. The association of art critics/curators and artists was registered in 1995.
Current Exhibition
- from Sep 29, 2020
- till Nov 29, 2020
- Opening: Tuesday, September 29, 5 - 8 PM
- Venue National Gallery / The Palace
Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia / Credo Bonum Gallery
present
Models of collaborative, transcultural and transdisciplinary forms of curating
presentation by Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler
within the project “Close Encounters: Visual Dialogues”; School4Artists (Part Two – Back2School)
December 13th (Friday) 2019, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Credo Bonum Gallery
Slavyanska Street 2, Sofia
Current Exhibition
- from Dec 13, 2019
- till Dec 13, 2019
- Opening: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
- Venue Credo Bonum Gallery
Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia / Goethe-Institut Bulgarien
Presentation of
Reza Afisina and Iswanto Hartono
from ruangrupa, collective-curator of documenta 15, 2022 in Kassel
within the project “Close Encounters: Visual Dialogues”; School4Artists (Part Two – Back2School)
Friday, November 8th, 2019, 6 pm
Goethe-Institut Bulgarien, 1 Budapest Str., Sofia
Current Exhibition
- from Nov 8, 2019
- Opening: 6 pm
- Venue Goethe-Institut Bulgarien, 1 Budapest Str., Sofia
Memoir, memory, life, nature, freedom
Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia
Presents
A public talk by Merve Elveren
Within the project “Close Encounters: Visual Dialogues”; School4Artists (Part Two – Back2School)
October 9th (Wednesday) 2019, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Credo Bonum Gallery
Slavyanska Street 2, Sofia
Current Exhibition
- from Oct 9, 2019
- Opening: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
- Venue Credo Bonum Gallery
More...
THE LIVING TOGETHER AND ITS ENTAGLEMENTS
Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia
Presents
A public talk by Marina Fokidis
Within the project “Close Encounters: Visual Dialogues”; School4Artists (Part Two – Back2School)
October 5th (Saturday) 2019, 5:30 - 7:30 PM
French Institute in Bulgaria
3 Slaveykov Sq., 1000 Sofia
Current Exhibition
- from Oct 5, 2019
- Opening: 5:30 - 7:30 PM
For the sixth time this year the Essential Reading for Art Writers Award, an initiative of the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia, was presented.
The 2018 award is presented to Stefka Tsaneva.
NSK State in Time
ICA-Sofia presents
NSK State in Time. Public Presentation by Miran Mohar
18 November at 17:00–19:00
The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate - Sofia
15. Lyuben Karavelov Str., 1142 Sofia, Bulgaria
Miran Mohair is an integral part of one of the most renowned East European artistic groups - IRWIN, for which politics, in particular the concept of the state, is one of the main themes.
The group was founded in 1983 and is part of the art conglomerate "Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art)". It also includes the experimental theater "Scipion Nasice Sisters" and the famous "Laibach" music band, as well as Slovenian and international philosophers, designers, architects.
IRWIN Group consists of 5 artists - Andrei Savsky, Borut Vogelnik, Dusan Mandic, Miran Mohar and Roman Uraniek, but one author. At the heart of this author's work are several principles, the first of which is collectivism - the common artistic body that reflects modern public attitudes and "melts" the outdated pretense of the individual author. On the question what was the definition of the form of the group, the artists responded that it is exactly five people fitting in a car and easily traveling around for the realization of their projects.
The other principle is formulated as the concept of the "retro-avant-garde", paradoxically confronting the tradition and innovative experiments intertwined in the history of the XX century. According to IRWIN and according to Slavoj Zhizek's definition, "hyper-identification" with history can only allow art, to derive from it the endless benefits without "sticking" to ideologies.
In 2002, IRWIN published "East Art Map. (Re) Construction of the History of Contemporary Art in Eastern Europe from 1945 to 2000 "- a research and reference folio containing texts written by the invited representatives of different countries and a map of the interrelationships between individuals and the events in this art. "East Art Map" as an art project was presented within the framework of the Night of the Museums and Galleries of the Open Arts Foundation and curator Yara Boubnova in Plovdiv in 2011. http://openarts.info/east-art-map-irwin-bg/ . Miran Mohar then visited Bulgaria for the first time, but not Sofia.
In this year's 57 Venice Biennale, IRWIN presented one of the most interesting pavilions - the supranational "NSK State" http://nsk-state-pavilion.org/, which is realized through the temporary "NSK Embassies" and NSK Guards "During various artistic projects, and through the issuing of prestigious passports in the world arts environments. Many of the holders of such passports, including refugees and illegal immigrants in Europe, participated in the NSK State People's Congress in 2013. This futuristic project began in 1993 with the break-up of Yugoslavia in response to the return of ideas of the national state and the many issues related to the notions of territories, history, ethnicity, culture.
In 2010, with the active participation of IRWIN in Ljubljana, an International Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) was created.
Miran Mohar as representative of IRWIN and Ambassador of "NSK State in Time" comes to Sofia at the invitation of the School4artists Educational Project of the Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia for individual meetings with his participants and for the presentation of the practices and strategies of IRWIN.