About Slav Nedev

Event: C (Carbon) - an exhibition curated by Slav Nedev

Dates: 8 May 2019 - 5 Jun 2019

In this exhibition, carbon is a metaphor for life, seen as "chemistry" in the widest sense - like interaction, reaction, burning, transformation, conversion, change, exchange, consumption, energy, organization, self-organization and decay of matter... and last as an opportunity for life itself.
Carbon can also be interpreted as a model of the human being - always connected, giving and receiving energy to and from others, yet remaining identical to itself and preserving its specific character. As carbon atoms form long chains, so we humans connect with others and build / participate in networks, circles, etc. that are transformed, expanded, collapsed or disintegrated.

So, this exhibition is devoted to life in its many different forms and manifestations through the meditation of this element.

Slav Nedev

Event: The Gift

Dates: 17 Dec 2018 - 12 Jan 2019

In 2010 the Institute of Contemporary Art-Sofia started the annual Christmas shows titled “Museum souvenirs from the none-existing museum of contemporary art”. The tradition goes on with a challenge to the artists to think about art and the gift at the same time; to create small, compact, attractive and accessible objects. To make art works that are souvenirs and souvenir that are art works. Or both in one whole. The main thing about such works is the GIFT.

The Gift is both the title and the theme of the Christmas show this year at the ICA-Sofia. There is a motto – “A Gift is a Gift only when it’s wrapped!” From December 17th to January 12th gifts will be wrapped, many gifts.

Event: Objects

Dates: 30 Nov 2018 - 15 Dec 2018

I would like this exhibition to offer fewer words and more observation; to let objects speak in silence, and people to feel and think for themselves.

What is an object? Various interpretations of this concept are possible. Here it has the simple meaning of something we can observe. Something we perceive as external to the observer (subject) and which can be seen by him and others. In our (Western) culture "objectively" has acquired the meaning of "commonality" and hence of "real"... because it is assumed that it is not influenced by personal (subjective) feelings or attitudes. However, this is only apparent. In the process of experiencing the object, we put into it our soul, our pre-existing contents. Even when we see something new in an object, we actually find something unknown in ourselves. An endless process in which the subject objectify themselves. Projecting their inner world on objects, the subject experiences themselves in the world.

Event: 7th Beijing International Art Biennale

Dates: 24 Sep 2017 - 15 Oct 2017

7th Beijing International Art Biennale "The Silk Road and World Civilizations"

Event: Slav Nedev. Paintings

Dates: 5 May 2017 - 26 Jul 2017

A solo exhibition including works from two different series - Water Prints and Elements.

Event: Bistrichki, Valchev, Nedev, Simeonov

Dates: 28 Mar 2017 - 22 Apr 2017

A group show by four artists and friends.

Event: Bistrichki, Valchev, Nedev

Dates: 6 Feb 2017 - 25 Dec 2017

A group show by three artists.

Event: Paysage

Dates: 9 Dec 2016 - 6 Jan 2017

A group exhibition dedicated to the landscape in the widest sense of this genre.

Participants:
Adelina Ilieva
Andrey Hambarski
Andrey Kulev
Daniel Mirchev
Iva Yaranova
Ivan Shishkov
Krasimira Pastirova
Martin Ivanov
Milko Bozhkov
Mimi Dobreva
Philip Popoff
Plamen Monev
Slav Nedev
Victor Popov

Event: Water Prints

Dates: 6 Oct 2016 - 28 Oct 2016

Water Prints is a series of works made with gouache and tempera on Losin® handmade deckle edged paper.

The series is called Water Prints because some simple stencils or other hand made printing surfaces were used in the making of the works.

More images from the show at: https://www.facebook.com/504651529586454/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1251678384883761

Event: τόπος - topographies - ...topias (a group exhibition)

Dates: 13 May 2016 - 31 May 2016

Participants:
Alexander Valchev
Georgi Ruzhev
Dan Tenev
Dessislava Morosova
Ivo Bistrichki
Kamen Startchev
Peter Tzanev
Rossen Toshev
Slav Nedev
Stela Vassileva
Stefan Petrunov
Philip Popoff

Curator: Slav Nedev

The exhibition offers various views on the Place (τόπος) as an open, differentiated, explored and developed space; developed not only as a fait accompli but as a process and project as well.
Slav Nedev

More about the exhibition at:
http://slavnedev.weebly.com/tau972piomicronsigma---topographies---topias.html
or
https://www.facebook.com/events/1009556975802773/

Event: Biotope in the Ballet Rehearsal Room

Dates: 21 Apr 2016 - 12 May 2016

A small exhibition of works from the Biotope series in the Ballet Rehearsal Room, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. The exhibition was part of the project Small Rooms that includes 5 small solo exhibition in various spaces of a larger cultural center.

Event: SUPER[M]ART[KET]

Dates: 5 Nov 2015 - 29 Nov 2015

"The SUPER[M]ART[KET] project and exhibition aims to acknowledge and contribute to the change needed to advance the Bulgarian art scene to the demands and opportunities of its present day European and international context. It is based on the similar project entitled simply Market that I have conceived and curated as a platform for the 45th Zagreb Salon in 2010. Starting point for both exhibitions was the curatorial dilemma over the meaning and purpose of exhibition as a socio-cultural construct in general. Is it viable at all in times of recession (which will doubtlessly affect, if not budgeting itself, then surely the quantity of approved programs and operational resources), to organise an exhibition as a sheer review of artistic production in some particular period, solo show or intellectual interpretation of cultural phenomena and its echoing the socio-economic relationships?"
- Branko Franceschi, Director Museum of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia

Event: Map of the New Art

Dates: 31 Aug 2015 - 1 Nov 2015

Imago Mundi: Map of the New Art is the largest exhibition to date of the Luciano Benetton Collection, a collection of works commissioned and collected by Luciano Benetton on his travels around the world. Sourced from more than 38 collections, the exhibition comprises 6,930 works by emerging and established artists whose only restriction is the 10x12cm format.

The Bulgarian artists are included in the catalogue "Bulgaria: Save the Dreams" available online.

Event: Biotope 17 (1&2)

Dates: 21 May 2015 - 21 Jun 2015

This is rather an intervention in the street through the gallery's "Stick Space"- a device that is located just in front of the gallery showcase. The device is a frame on which large prints on vinyl could be exhibited. In this case I have created two different prints for each side that show one surreal Biotope scene as seen from two opposite cameras. This way the scene could be seen from two opposite view points. The prints are 200 x 60 cm and were prepared specially for this show.

Later in November 2015 the prints were shown again for another month.

Event: Snap to Grid

Dates: 11 Dec 2014 - 3 Jan 2015

An exhibition showing digital art and photography printed on 21.6 x 28 cm heavyweight paper and shown arranged in a grid.

Event: What Happened?

Dates: 5 Dec 2014 - 31 Dec 2014

The exhibition was organized by Painting Dept. of the UBA and aimed to display not only the recent works of some active painters working but their socially responsible position on what is happening in the country today as well.

36 authors with 79 paintings participated in the exhibition.

The project "What Happened?" is a challenge to the authors to present their views and to trigger (un-)expected social-political reactions with means of art. The exhibition has been motivated by recent developments of new figurative and conceptual line in the painting related to the articulation of acute social and political content.

Event: To Be Continued… (Gaudenz B. Ruf Collection of Contemporary Bulgarian Art)

Dates: 5 Nov 2014 - 31 Dec 2014

An exhibition showing the collection of Gaudenz B. Ruf a Swiss national, diplomat and passionate admirer of art. As Switzerland's ambassador to Bulgaria from 1995 to 2000 Mr. Ruf has set up in his residence numerous exhibitions. He supported the development of the country, and the place of contemporary Bulgarian art in this process. At the same time Ruf demonstrates genuine insight. The names presented by him are contemporary Bulgarian artists, who in the beginning of the 90s and today have established the profile of this art.

Event: Then and Now

Dates: 12 Jun 2014 - 10 Jul 2014

"The exhibition “Then and now" presents the art of many famous artists, their artistic pursuits and discoveries over the years of creative maturation.

In the exhibition there are mainly selected authors with a long cultural expressions and creative way. There are exhibited works from the early period and new achievements.

The proposed temporal comparisons alive the curiosity about complex collisions, fluctuations and exaltation in the creative process, to strange developments and metamorphoses personal artistic styles. It is capable of tracking changes in the plastic characteristics during different periods for analysis of creative inspiration and inspired discoveries in artistic practices of these artists."
- quoted from the website of UBA

Event: The Untold Abstraction (A view on the Bulgarian abstract art from the end of the 50s to 2014)

Dates: 12 May 2014 - 31 May 2014

The “Untold abstraction” is an exhibition that aims to trace how ideas of abstract pass and receive specific implementation in the Bulgarian art. It looks at the forms of artistic consciousness and experience that do not offer direct analogies and connections with cultural area framed by formalizing historical stories of totalitarianism and transition. "Untold" in the sense of theoretical, untold, historically not situated, critical not valued and fully involved in aesthetic communication.

The "Untold abstraction" is a project dedicated to a particular trajectory in Bulgarian art that cannot be described in terms of monopoly history of innovation and new forms.

The exhibition presents artists who express strong and character tendencies, and linked his artistic destiny, intuitively or consciously, with the ideas of abstractionism as an experimental field of single individuals attempting to escape from the devastating symbols of group identity.
- Prof. St. Pamoukchiev

Event: Hospital for Lovers

Dates: 1 Mar 2013 - 16 Mar 2013

The exhibition HOSPITAL FOR LOVERS was born as an idea after a discussion between artists, doctors, chemists, critics and journalists. Its basic load is this particular statement of drama that often comprehends and conquers us but not only sentiments and love experiences. This idea had attracted 200 authors from ten countries among which there are people with different interests and from different generations.

Twenty percent of the patients in the psychiatric clinics are there because of love experiences. In the normal everyday life the percent of the people in love that need treatment is maybe bigger. It’s about a million people that need a special help to treat their state of love. The theme was touched by philosophers, writers, poets, scientist and etc.
- Dimitar Grozdanov

Event: Magnet & Antimagnet

Dates: 20 Dec 2012 - 12 Jan 2013

Christmas Souvenir Show
Opening - December 20, 2012 (Thursday), 6 pm

One day before the prophesied End of the World and a short while before Christmas and the new 2013 we are offering a concise and accessible survey of contemporary art in Bulgaria with the participation of 55 (fifty five) artists.

The beautiful works of their own selection – well known or specially produced, coming either from here or from far away, suitable for different tastes and preferences, for both connoisseurs and ordinary fans of art – have been reproduced on the so called magnets for refrigerators in an edition covering our entire gallery.

Each work is available in an edition of 10 magnets. Following your own choice you can compose a fairly representative selection of what's happening in our art today.

Besides the editions there is an original surprise waiting in the same "magnetic" format!
- Iara Boubnova, Curator

Event: Communications

Dates: 4 Dec 2012 - 29 Dec 2012

"The selection for the exhibition “Communications” will unfold on several parallel lines.

It will try to show different artistic strategies in the communication of messages and the immense, indescribable dialects in “the language of art”;

The show will present ties (in the meaning of communications, but also failures and miscommunications) between generations, authors, genres... and still try to keep certain decency.

The selection will be based on the relations and interpretations of the authors towards the topic formally, semantically, documentarily, psychologically etc."
- Yovo Panchev, Curator

Event: Chances, Choices, Changes

Dates: 14 Nov 2012 - 4 Dec 2012

"Chances, Choices, Changes" is the theme of a contemporary art exhibition celebrating 20+ years of partnership between Bulgaria and the World Bank Group. Contemporary Bulgarian artists capture changes in Bulgarian society over the past two decades and reveal its aspirations for the future.

"Chances, Choices, Changes is not a historic reconstruction of events but rather an exciting sample of art created in dramatically different political and social contexts that showcase the vibrancy of the Bulgarian art scene, of the opportunities that are opening for Bulgaria’s most creative thinkers and doers, and the position in the international fabric of contemporary art that these artists rightfully occupy."
- Marina Galvani, World Bank art curator

Event: Tree of Life

Dates: 2 Apr 2012 - 25 Dec 2012

A group show dedicated to the nature seen as a place where our life happens and is possible at all.

Event: Urban Zone

Dates: 24 Nov 2011 - 14 Dec 2011

"The exhibition Urban Zone raises the problem of the complicated complex of social relations and psychical tensions caused by the conditions of life in the big city. The attention of the artists is focused towards the urbanized landscape, the unified impersonality, the stereotypes, norms, rituals and outrages of the social attitude.

The exhibition finds the projections of the psychological and cultural phenomenon, modulated by the contemporary global utopias and fetishes, the tension, irritation, obsessions, passions and confrontations, from the lost or the substitution of the moral reference points."

- Prof. Stanislav Pamukchiev

Event: Section 13 Annual Exhibition

Dates: 20 Apr 2010 - 20 May 2010

The annual exhibition of Section 13 (unconventional forms) of the UBA.

Event: Biotope

Dates: 31 Mar 2010 - 21 Apr 2010

An exhibition showing 16 Biotope images that were created as visualizations of a large installation representing a “city” built of trash containers.

The concept:

Biotope (from Ancient Greek βίος (bios) 'life' + τόπος (topos) 'place') is an area providing a living place for a specific biological community.

The project deals with one of the serious problems of today world – the problem with the waste that has already not only pragmatic but cultural and social dimensions as well. The increasing consumption leads to increased pollution. The consumer society has turned into a waste society. The message is quite clear: we produce so much waste that the place we live in, our biotope, turns gradually into a dumping ground where our outlook and movements get more and more limited.

Event: Environmental Justice

Dates: 9 Dec 2009 - 20 Dec 2009

Amongst the many relations defining human existence the individual and collective relation to the environment and our livelihoods are of the most essential.

The cultivation, elaboration and even destruction of the environment are defining our culture and a central tool of power. Field Work aims to investigate those relations by engaging directly with urban and rural landscapes, and reflect on contemporary perception and uses of it.
Strategies of site specificity have become inadequate. Instead we work for and with the notion of spatial and environmental justice, combining environmental sustainability with social
justice issues. Not only resources and wealth but also pollution are distributed unevenly, and the negative side effects of neo-liberal developments tend to hit the poor the hardest.

- Field Work /Lise Skou and Nis Rømer/, Curators

Event: Reality & Fiction

Dates: 19 Jun 2009 - 18 Jul 2009

A group exhibition organized by the Painting dept. of UBA

Event: Short Distance

Dates: 12 Jun 2008 - 12 Jul 2008

A national exhibition organized by the Painting dept. of UBA.

Event: Uninhibited Contacts

Dates: 2 Apr 2008 - 30 Apr 2008

A group exhibition of the works made during a symposium in Nessebar, Bulgaria.

Event: Images from Nowhere

Dates: 29 Feb 2008 - 29 Mar 2008

An exhibition showing some earlier surreal works relating to the unconscious perception of the self and surrounding world.

Event: Balance

Dates: 11 Oct 2007 - 31 Oct 2007

BALANCE was group exhibition curated by Mr. Dimitar Grozdanov.
I took part with an object called Dis-BALANCE.

Event: Cultural Identity (exhibition of Bulgarian & American art)

Dates: 14 Sep 2007 - 28 Oct 2007

The exhibition Cultural Identity was held at two venues: Sofia Press Gallery, Sofia and Alexey von Schlippe Gallery, Groton, CT, USA.

"Culture is a shared, learned, symbolic system of values, beliefs and attitudes that shapes and influences our perception and behavior. Cultural identity refers to the feeling of identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as she/he is influenced by his/her belonging to a group or culture. This can include national or regional identity, social identity (part of a social group), racial identity, class identity, gender role identity, consumer or corporate identity, etc. How do we define ourselves with respect to our culture and what are the factors that are significant in locating ourselves within a particular culture to which we belong?"

- Brad Guarino, Artist & Curator of the exhibition

Event: Traffic

Dates: 17 May 2007 - 15 Jun 2007

A national juried show of works that research the subject of Traffic.

Event: Generations’ Dialog

Dates: 15 Feb 2007 - 10 Mar 2007

An exhibition of the works (exclusively watercolors) created during an art symposium at Sozopol, Bulgaria.

Event: Remains

Dates: 17 Aug 2006 - 10 Sep 2006

The works in the REMAINS series were created in 1995 and 1996. They all are до the same size (65 x 50 cm). Some are made with soft pastels on colored paper, others with watercolor.

Perhaps it will be of interest to say that almost all composition elements are subsumed under certain mathematical rules.

The series itself was inspired by a number of photos relating to research in the field of metal fatigue. A field in which there are high tensions and deformation rates, which, as a final result, produce interesting forms and textures. Later, some images from the trivial round were added to the series, but now subsumed under the main theme.

Event: Elements

Dates: 20 Sep 2005 - 5 Oct 2005

Why did I call this series elements? Because there is air in it, there is water, there are earth and fire… There are birth, life and death, springing up from the relationships between the elements. The name was not preliminary given – it arose spontaneously in the work process, as well as many of the elements in the paintings themselves. Spontaneity, in fact, had a primary role in the making of the works. In this sense, the works are not illustrations or treatments of a preconceived theme, but rather a process of giving the elements an opportunity to point out and represent themselves. The elements are not only outside but inside as well, in a state of perpetual communion, merging into one another, and thus giving birth to an alchemy that has its processes and stages, as well as its starting, transitional and end products.

Event: Between Two Dreams

Dates: 11 Sep 2003 - 11 Oct 2003

This exhibition in showed works that are dealing with the surreal world of dreams.

Event: Creation

Dates: 23 Feb 2003 - 22 Mar 2003

A series of works inspired by the terrain/rocks on the summit of Vitosha Mountain near Sofia.
The works have been created between 2000 and 2003. Taking the visible nature as a starting point they transcend the visible and try to reach further and deeper dimensions of fundamental principles.

Event: Bulgarian Painting after 1989

Dates: 13 Jun 2002 - 13 Jul 2002

An exhibition attempting to encompass the works of young to mid career avant-garde artists that were active at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's. (Of course most of the are active now too.)
The show was curated by the late now Ruen Ruenov and there is a catalog.

Event: Young Bulgarian Artists

Dates: 8 Jun 2000 - 28 Jun 2000

An exhibition showing young artist in the beginning of their career.

Event: Works on Paper, Dritta Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria;

Dates: 20 Sep 1999 - 22 Oct 1999

An exhibition showing exclusively works on paper, mostly watercolors and some soft pastels.

Event: Spiritual Messages

Dates: 22 Dec 1995 - 19 Jan 1996

Spiritual Messages were in fact series of yearly shows that lasted until 2001. The artists that were normally invited were those that work with the Vitosha Gallery.

Event: Selected Works 1993 - 1995

Dates: 1 May 1995 - 20 May 1995

An exhibition showing oil paintings from the period 1993 - 1995.
My first really big solo exhibition in a very large, prestigious gallery managed by the famous art historian, and now late, Maximillian Kirov.
Unfortunately the Vitosha Gallery exists no more.

Event: New Names

Dates: 6 May 1994 - 27 May 1994

An opportunity for young artist to emerge in the exhibition space of the Union of the Bulgarian Artists.