Rada Boukova at 58th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia

Pavilion of the Republic of Bulgaria
58th International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia

Rada Boukova and Lazar Lyutakov
HOW WE LIVE
May 11 - November 24, 2019

Fondazione Ugo e Olga Levi Onlus, Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, San Marco 2893, 30124 Venezia
 
‘How We Live‘ is a visual dialogue between two individual works by the artists Rada Boukova and Lazar Lyutakov, unfolded on the floor of Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, initially used as quarters for domestic servants in the 17th century and later converted to an office. 

Rada Boukova frames prefabricated construction panels with coloured PVC decorative strips, which makes the industrially-formatted material look like complete module. The materials are originally assigned a function to meet the needs of everyday life, but this is blurred in Rada Boukova’s arrangement and they come alive with their colour, shape and interaction with the architecture.

Polystyrene foam is widely used for building insulation; its colour and structure are hidden under other solid technological layers. Though fragile and consisting of 95% air, the material comes with the promise of protecting against the arbitrary impact of climate change. In the work ‘How We Live‘, the ephemeral nature of the material gives way to its magnetic colour and modern presence and the azure polystyrene comes across as an effective solution to all the aesthetic and practical problems of contemporary life.

In the work ‘The Way of the Sand‘, Lazar Lyutakov juxtaposes the production methods of glass and its contemporary substitute – the acrylic glass. In the treatment of plexiglass, he carefully controls the randomness of the fracture, which imparts the character of an object that is unique for its type, i.e. a display case exhibiting a single product, on the primary neutral industrial material. The glasses exhibited are made from waste recycled glass using traditional hand-crafted technology in a small family workshop and their production cost is kept very low in line with the needs of the local market.
They are quickly produced and used for serving beer in the streets of Hanoi.

Both artists use industrially produced modules that are widely distributed and accessible modern innovations; polystyrene, acrylate and PVC. In ‘How We Live‘, the objects adopt different social roles of design and the material world, between instant and cheap solutions and the speculative status of exclusive and unique artistic work.
The Pavilion of the Republic of Bulgaria at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria and is produced by the National Gallery, Sofia.

The catalogue of the exhibition ‘How We Live‘ is supported by Gaudenz B. Ruf.
The participation of Lazar Lyutakov is helped by The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria.

text by Vera Mlechevska 

more about the exhibition: http://howwelive-pavilion.com

Image credits:

Rada Boukova
How We Live
2019
Photo credit: Paolo Codeluppi, Rada Boukova
Extruded polystyrene, PVC, aluminium profiles

Lazar Lyutakov
Way of the sand
2019
Photo credit: Paolo Codeluppi, Rada Boukova
Handmade faceted glass tumblers, acrylic glass, metal bolts