Kamen Stoyanov was born in 1977 in Russe, Bulgaria, and currently lives and works in Vienna and Sofia. He studied painting at the National Academy of Art Sofia, visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and film directing at the New Bulgarian University. His artistic practice is diverse and multimedia, encompassing film, video, performance, installation, painting, and drawing.
Over the years, Stoyanov’s work has been showcased in numerous prestigious exhibitions, biennials, festivals and institutions worldwide such as: 17th Biennale of Sydney; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; Aichi Triennial (Japan); Institute of Contemporary Art Sofia, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (Germany); Kunstverein Salzburg; MANIFESTA 7 (Trentino, Italy); MANIFESTA 11 (Zurich, Switzerland); MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Los Angeles, USA); Media Biennale Wroclaw (Poland); MUMOK - Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien; Museum of Humour and Satire (Gabrovo, Bulgaria); 5th Mardin Bienali (Turkey); National Art Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria).
He was awarded, among others the following prizes: The Sovereign European Art Prize (2011), Otto Mauer Prize (2011), Alexander Resnikov Award (2010), Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, (Galerie für Zeitgenoessische Kunst Leipzig, 2008) MUMOK Prize for the Zone1 at the VIENNAFAIR (2007), Prize for Visual Arts of the City of Vienna (2007) and the MAK Schindler Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program in Los Angeles (2012). He won the award Best Experimental at the Dumbo Film Festival (2020) and was nominated for Best Experimental at the Long Story Shorts International Film Festival in Bucharest (2020). In 2024, with the support of the National Film Center, Kamen Stoyanov directed "Zvezda," his first feature-length film.
Kamen Stoyanov’s works are part of public collections such as Lentos, Austria; MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts; MUMOK, Austria; MUSA, Public Collection of the Austrian Government; Sofia City Art Gallery, Bulgaria, and private collections such as ESSL MUSEUM, Austria; EVN Collection, Austria; DOM MUSSEUM, Austria.
The movement as a process plays an important role in my practice. The movement as an intentional act of change of a given condition. Social, urban, cultural or institutional one. The movement as an instrument of shaping the space. – Kamen Stoyanov
Kamen Stoyanov’s artistic practice finds parallel between physical movement and process, and ideas of historical, social and cultural change. The artist performs – in actions or objects – with the same care in streets, fields, and art spaces, drawing on the accidental and ubiquitous readymade. Inevitably, high and low culture mix in Stoyanov forms; his work is just as likely to consist of making his native Bulgarian yoghurt as neon sculpture. From here, he inserts himself into dialogues of power, progress, and geopolitics, without abandoning the intimate that surrounds his ideas. – Pierre d’Alancaisez