Christo for Beginners

Christo for Beginners

“Christo for Beginners” by Luchezar Boyadjiev is a project about what’s private and shared in both the physical space and the imagination. The artist engages with the public space and that involves the urban, the media, and the virtual environment. Luchezar Boyadjiev is activating them with artworks, visions, exhibition displays, actions and lectures while involving the collaboration of both his fellow citizens and colleagues. Luchezar Boyadjiev is a known expert on the projects, the practices and the methodologies developed and used by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. However, this is the first time he is implementing such a project as an artist, rather than as an art critic, a theoretician, a lecturer or a historian of art. “Christo for Beginners” is the pilot project of the Sarieva / Gallery and the Open Arts Foundation within the Sarieva Open Arts program.  

First stage

CHRISTO FOR BEGINNERS

Exhibition opening, info zone with works and other materials by Luchezar Boyadjiev

Friday, August 5th, 2022, Sarieva / Gallery, Plovdiv, 17:00 – 20:00

Walk and Talk – Lecture tour in urban environment with Luchezar Boyadjiev

Saturday, August 6th, 2022, various locations, Plovdiv, 10:30 – 12:30

(Gathering of the group of participants in front of artnewscafe, 10:30)

For good and/or for bad, in our country, just like elsewhere in the Balkans, our centuries-long history is both alive and constantly challenged, everywhere by everyone. It tends to create the conditions for the production of much more actual reality – living, breathing and throbbing with energy, then our multitude of small states and proud peoples can realistically handle. Sometimes the world history is “unloading” all its might on our Balkan shoulders. But we are pretending not to notice our chaotic vitality; indeed we are living here and now as if this is the “always and everywhere”. The heroes, the leading characters of these ages-long processes either already have dedicated monuments at 5-to-15 meters high, or are the targets of constantly debated projects for such totems, idols and fetishes of the long-gone past.      

What might happen though, if the debate on saturating the public space in our cities with monuments of the glorious past and heroes, is supplemented by the whole register of art and culture heroes from the modern and contemporary age? For instance, does Belgrade need a monument to Marina Abramović? Does Zagreb need a monument to Mangelos (www.moma.org/artists/29439); to Sanja Iveković or Ivan Mestrović? Does Sarajevo need a monument to Braco Dimiriević or to Jusuf Hadzifejzović although these two are very much alive and kicking artists? We do have a monument indeed to Vladimir Dimitrov, the Master but do we also need to have monuments to Boris Angeloushev and George Papazov in Sofia, or to Jules Paskin in Vidin? How big do these need to be, and where are we to place them – where they lived or where we need to impress both ourselves and the tourists? Should they be 10, 15, or 20 meters high? And last but not least, whet kind of visual style do we need to ask for from the artists who would compete with their visions in a public tender?

The goal of the project “Christo for Beginners” is to create a space for debate and to kick of this debate – asking questions about the past, as well as about the future in our culture. The first stage of the project “Christo for Beginners” by Luchezar Boyadjiev within Sarieva Open Arts program will manifest an “exploratory mandate” for the creation of a massive, equestrian monument to Christo in Plovdiv. The so titled exhibition in Sarieva / Gallery and the „Walk and Talk” lecture tour given by the artist in the city environment will investigate the format, the locations, the public attitudes and the fantasy needed for the erection of such a monument.

The exhibition will display the scale model for the monument created by Luchezar Boyadjiev, his project drawings, visualizations and other material. Within the format of the „Walk and Talk“, we will walk to and talk about various potential locations for the erection of the monument.

 

Press

Luchezar Boyadjiev at Sarieva, Artviewer, 17.9.2022

Luchezar Boyadjiev presents Christo for Beginners at Sarieva, BNR, 5.8.2022

Do we need a monument to Christo?, Pod Tepeto, 3.9.2022

Do Bulgarians want a monument to Christo?, Ploshtad Slaveykov, 3.8.2022

Tonchev, Boyan. Exhibition sparks debate whether or not we need a monument to Christo, Dnevnik, 3.8.2022

Christo rides a horse over the Arc de Triomphe, Telegraph, 5.8.2022