Introduction to Contemporary Art - Sofia - Walk & Talk with Luchezar Boyadjiev

Introduction to Contemporary Art 2016 – Sofia

Walk & Talk with Luchezar Boyadjiev

Dates: May 14, June 11, September 10 and October 22

Locations: public spaces and monuments in the central part of the city and in the periphery, galleries and museums

The educational platform Introduction to Contemporary Art, a project by the Open Arts Foundation and Sariev Contemporary, continues in Sofia this year as well. For its sixth edition the platform started the new format Walk & Talk with the artist Luchezar Boyadjiev. Thus, it continued its educational strategy for creating knowledge and awareness for contemporary art and the new format offered a new approach for active involvement of the audience and for connecting art and public space and putting them in a broader context.

In May, June, September and October four walk & talks took place. Each one of them had their own concepts, topcis and routes at various locations in Sofia – public places, monuments, galleries and museums. Target groups were people interested in contemporary art, no background knowledge or exprerience required.

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Each walk in the city is like a drawing in a public space – “make” lines on the boulevards, take shots in Instagram and Sketch Guru in aquarelle or pastel colors or just collecting impressions of people, building, monuments, ads or other bunch of things. Paul Klee, one of the most important artists in 20th century, says that drawing for him is like “taking a line for a walk”. For the apache indian tribe from North America crossing, no matter if it is really or mentally, through particular places of the tribe's territory is not only recalling of their names – each place is a “nest” of knowledge, each place “holds” a history, culture and wisdom of the tribe. The story of the place is a story of the tribe; crossing through places is a crossing through the cultural “body” of the tribe; the place is not only a part of the landscape but a “container” of the tribe's identity – from the language to the visual associations and views.

In those walks in Sofia we will try to combine the city and the art, the visual surrounding and the layers of city history and culture, the contemporary art and museum of classical samples, the monument and the billboard – we will try to observe and talk about the living in the city as we draw with our eyes, bodies and words in the space and with the “material” that Sofia provides us.

They say that the art today is urban and cosmopolitan phenomenon. Then – is there a better way to “experience” it than a walk in the city with wide open eyes?

Each of the four walks will have different theme and route. Considered are both central and peripheral locations in Sofia. “Stops” on the way will be both outdoors – squares, monuments, buildings, views and indoors – galleries, museums, studios. The places will be as familiar to everyone – you will see them in a new way and unknown – you’ll find them together. Each walk has its own theme, but in all it is crossed the problem of urban living, history and culture in relation to the practices of contemporary visual arts (… from the monument to the display of your smartphone). For example – the celebrity and the ordinary citizen in the space of the city; the features of body behavior of the Sofia resident and practices of performance art; material and immaterial visual media – intuitions about visual ecology and political urbanism; the city as a machine, public spaces as urban interface and resident of the city as an object that creates the city, but is created by the city.

Luchezar Boyadjiev

Video documentation of the tours 

First tour, 14.05.2016 - "The famous person and the common citizen in the space of the city"

Second tour, 11.06.2016 - "Bodies in the city, the man in action and formation of cultural heritage"