AKTUELLE SZENE BULGARIEN

Kiril Cholakov’s works are presented in Koblenz as part of the exhibition: AKTUELLE SZENE BULGARIEN
Works of the Ludwig Collection of the Eighties and new developments of art in Bulgaria

“ …..What is exactly which the younger generation is engaged in? Especially noteworthy are the clearly improved networkings of younger artists, who throunh periods of foreign study and particularly though gallery representations abroad – enjoy more diverse possibilites of exhibitionparticipation and therefore of international publicity. Many of the younger artists in the meantime live exclusively abroad or at least engage in a regular shift between a foreign and a Bulgarian place of residence. This can easily become a problem for the self- image of the artist in his own country. It seems as if a great divide is opening up to those artists who have already registred internationally significant successes, in particular the three young participants of the last Biennale in Venice, namely Stefan Nikolaev, Ivan Mudov and Pravdoliub Ivanov, as well as Lucheyar Boyadjiev and Kiril Cholakov. In the meantime , Stefan Nikolaev lives entirely in Paris, Kiril Cholakov predominantly in Italy, but both maintain regular contact to the art scene in Bulgaria. All are united artistically by a slightly mocking pose of omniscience, linced to an authorial narrative attitude which, so to speak, “pits in front of the viewer works which for their part cause irritation, subvert customary patterns of seeing, and sometimes culminate in humorous gestures…”.

Beate Reifenscheid – curator of exhibition and director ofLudwig Museum – Koblenz, partial quote from his text: “Contemporary Bulgaria an overview of the Ludwig collection and developments in Bulgaria”

I created the “Project for a New Bulgarian Flag” in 2005. Sixteen chaotic and difficult years had already passed since the fall of socialism, when many of us had already developed the feeling that the so-called “transition to a demotic society” had been pre-programmed and largely managed by people appointed by the secret services of socialism. It was discovered that not a few of the leaders of the new anti-communist parties were collaborators of these secret services. They were years of contradictions and painful transformations, of rampant inflation, of non-transparent or completely hidden privatizations of the most desirable sectors of the economy, of Wild West capitalism and mafias at every level, of increasingly reduced social rights and justice. In 2005, I had the distinct feeling that the “great change” that began in 1989 had become the “great replacement,” in which the former political power had transformed into a new economic power and the communist nomenclature had become the new millionaires.For a long time, there had been talk of our accession to the European Union, but the “light at the end of the tunnel” seemed very far away, with a sense of stagnation, disappointment, and even nostalgia for the past prevailing. And despite all these circumstances, or perhaps precisely because of them, a significant number of artists from my generation felt a strong desire to become part of the visual media of Western European culture.

I wanted the “elegiac optimism” of the phrase: Let’s grit our teeth until our dear little ones grow their teeth… to sound with a slight irony from my “Project for a New Bulgarian Flag.

That’s why my work is 10 meters long!
Kiril Cholakov