The first two editions of “White Exhibition” were solo projects by Iskra Blagoeva, but this time she uses her abilities to involve people in shared initiatives and has formed a small artistic society (of her own). At first glance, it seems as if she intends to take on the role of curator of this exhibition, but there is more to her attitude than “oh, I’ve been on the phone the whole morning” or “we can’t seem to figure out the measurements of the platform yet.” As she organizes, mixes and matches friendly, professional and family relations, through this exhibition she compensates for the lack of direct artistic communication in the so-called “artistic life”. The official tone is of no use here. The very efforts of putting this together obtain the characteristics of a work of art.
White
Snow, snowdrops, innocence, wedding dresses, white paintings, white neon, white sphinx, white performance, light. We associate the phrase “winter is coming” with snow and the Christmas, but also with darkness, and the long “Night of the Middle Ages”. “White Exhibition” is held periodically, followed by “Black Paintings of Cheerful Events” – logically, there is no light without a shadow. I see white as a metaphor for the feminine, for the expectations of the woman to be immaculate and for the courage to “smear” yourself. In recent years, white clothing has become quite political. Numerous women in high positions, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appear in public wearing white as a symbol of new beginnings, strength and solidarity with the cause of the suffragettes.
The “F” word
The “F” topic has a bad reputation mainly due to the artists who follow the F-movement word for word and try to impose some learned and insincere morality. In contrast, Iskra Blagoeva interprets gender issues and lives her life according to her own logic, correcting and revising the norms of the F-teaching as she sees fit. For example, she continues to like, even to adore men as well as to gamble them.
Iskra Blagoeva and Daniela Radeva
Nina Blagoeva / Mama (Un)perishable, 2021
Nina Blagoeva depicts a romantic landscape with picturesque ruins and she seems to contrast it with the linear handwriting of “the child”. Here, the decision of what is to be depicted appears to be a reference to the pair of basic concepts in the art history of Heinrich Wölfflin. The invitation to her to participate in this exhibition is a middle finger to the patriarchal society in which she lived. It is an answer to a series of forbiddances in our family – first from the party to my grandfather to become an artist; then, from my grandfather and grandmother to my mother to study painting. Adding to it, is her forced education as an engineer and the sheer pressure of the then macho generation, all of which affected her life.
Iskra Blagoeva, Sign of Faith and Devotion, 2021
The best thing about this work is that moral categories are being rethought and there is no hint to the viewer whether to feel ferocious or outraged. The direction is clearly set by the good old symbolism of materials and means of expression – the juxtaposition between neon, cable ties, and ultra-luxurious polar fox cloak raises the question of the relationship between toxic masculinity, misogyny and cruelty to animals. It is also a question of morality – about the woman who can be bought; about the successful woman, which is immediately labeled as a bitch and deprived of her femininity; it is about condemnation in general.
Valentina Trayanova, I change everything, 2011
This sound sculpture could be interpreted as a response to the viral video by Cynthia Nixon “Be a Lady They Say”. But, in fact, there is no political connotation at all. Valentina Trayanova works mainly with the media of words and sounds. The repetition of the word “change” is like hypnosis for the listener, who is encouraged to interpret it freely. Besides, her voice sounds so seductive! May be this is the first time in which she releases the sexy potential of her voice.
Boryana Petkova, Spit it out, 2021
The theme of communications is recreated through perhaps a painful performance. She literally chews her kind words in the form of glass castings from the inside of her mouth. I like how it deforms her words and simultaneously distorts the delicate, pink, cliched image of the woman. Also throws in the idea of the “impenetrable sphinx” as it comes together with another work in the exhibition – Oedipus was a Cheater, 2020 by Iskra Blagoeva. She brings up the topic of emotions and restrain – “there is no problem for the woman to suffer, as long as she suffers beautifully” they say.
Mariela Gemisheva, Self-portrait, 2008
A fragment from a series of photographs taken together as a photoshoot. In this work, Mariela Gemisheva places herself as an object of observation. It recreates an outburst of aggression aimed at a completely innocent wedding dress, literally tearing it apart in front of the photographer and the audience. In this specific shot, she is completely covered, as if under a burqa, as the aggression becomes contagious even for the viewer. It awakens empathy. Now this is a pure form of “militant feminism”, yet, very finely presented.
Iskra Blagoeva and Daniela Radeva, Greetings from the women punks for the Section of women artists from the Society of Women with Higher Education, 2021
Work in two parts – painting and the current text, both co-authored. Let’s just add that this is not a professional experiment of the kind “switching places”, but an attempt to achieve the ultimate degree of intimacy between the artist and a curator.
Stela Vasileva, Royal Candle, 2021 and Vertical Foundation, 2021
So far no one has commented on the sense of architecture in some of the drawings and, more often, in installations by Stela Vasileva. Here, her instinct to “build” becomes apparent in the juxtaposition of softness and hardness as well as in the constructive problem she solves in order to balance the glass rod. At first reading, the subtext of her work seems to compromise the femininity of the exhibition with its vertical orientation. Yet, by no means we will admit to it, because we do not want to remember the expression “masculine painting” used as a compliment to women artists during socialism by their colleagues of the opposite sex. The depicted flower, known as “Mullein”, “Sheep’s tale” or “Royal candle” has a hairy an unbranched stem, and its roots penetrate deep into the soil. According to folk medicine, it helps to alleviate a long list of bodily sufferings, among which, but not only, “hoarse voice”.
Simeon Simeonov, untitled, 2021
I see the “feminine” in most of Simeon Simeonov’s works – pure, minimalist, white canvas, white silicone. For me, this is the perfect encapsulating work in the exhibition. The qualities of the artist are obvious, especially for viewers with refined taste plus a sensory attitude to perception.
Alexander Gabrovski, Memento Mori, 2021
Alex is a poet and an artist, and, so to speak, “The chosen one” in the exhibition, as a representative of a whole new generation of authors. A new being, not a “man” with all the aggression the word entitles. Intelligent, well-read, sensitive and unburdened by all the shit, which occupies us as women in this exhibition. He participates with his wise, but at the same time, childish poetry. In his performance, his body will be an object of observation for women’s glances. His role is to underline the opposition between male and female as ridiculous.
Something is rotten in Heaven 2019, +359 Gallery, Sofia
Last year, it became something usual to hear about murders or violence against women. The subject has become particularly media-intensive and politically loaded with the passions around the Istanbul Convention. Between the apathy, speculation, anger, horror, and the new, yet conservative wave of protection of family values, the door to the real debate has gradually begun to open – why is this happening and how do we react as a society – as citizens, but also as human beings. The exhibition of Iskra Blagoeva tries to open this particular door, shocking us a bit, worrying us and most of all confusing the stereotypes, with which we imperceptibly and inevitably live. For one year, the artist has been exploring the topic of the woman – murderer, looking for anchor points in psychology, mythology, poetry and religion. Documentary stories, part of the information flow, real life news give grounds for this, and the references made by the artist go far beyond. Guiding the audience through the themes of vanity and obsession with the new narcissistic culture, crime and sin, holiness, degradation and lack of remedy, confession and forgiveness, the author creates an overall installation in the space where the works complement and build on each other and “tell” about the contents of the exhibition along the vertical of the very Water Tower. At the heart of the project stands thewoman, but this exhibition is not only about women, insofar as the issue of violence therein is addressed as an act of treacherous superiority of the stronger over the weaker. Contrary to the expectations that human problems are discussed through the male image, Iskra Blagoeva has chosen to show the audience not the god-like Adam, but the sinful Eve. Are women-murderers abusers or victims; are they different from men in their role as oppressors and where to draw the line between strength and weakness, between fall and retribution? The two portraits in the exhibition relate to real women who killed in a cruel way their male partners. The artist creates images that are devoid of sentimentality or drama, who seduce with their fragility but also chill with their indifferent alienation and their pale stone faces. By putting haloes above their heads, the author provokes the audience, testing the limits of what we perceive as normal. At the same time, however, she makes a comment on the devoid of substance religiousness, which has become conservative scholasticism, insensitive to the contradictions of human life. Without expressly highlighting that she engages in the situation in Bulgaria, Iskra Blagoeva’s exhibition comments on many of the current problems in our country, from the murders (of women) through the growing alienation and violence among people, to the devaluation of values, the lack of adequate institutions, the degradation of faith and the chaos in the orientations for the world. This is an exhibition that uses the scandalous and even the horrible to turn to the forgotten role of art to talk about human choice, ethics, saints, and sinners. The visiting project – the film “Five Years and Five Months” by the directors Andrey Getov and Neda Sokolovska – further underlines the timeliness and the specificity of the problems that motivate the very exhibition, by telling about the problems of the women’s prison in Sliven and the degrading treatment of the women there.
Vladiya Mihaylova, Curator
Saint 01 2019, 116×81 cm, acrylic on canvas private collection
Saint 02 2019, 80×60 cm, acrylic on canvas private collection
2024 – 2025, Project for Dechko Uzunov Museum, branch of Sofia City Art Gallery
water colour document of the forgotten women, 200x90cm
The exhibition Blue Memories by Iskra Blagoeva is the result of the project Crossing Borders. This project started in November 2023 and, at the request of the artist, she was given the opportunity to work in the studio of Dechko Uzunov, studying his works and the archival materials preserved there. Thus, Crossing Borders moved beyond the passive role of a comparative exhibition—juxtaposing the works of a contemporary artist with those of Uzunov—and transformed into a process that led to the conception and realization of an entirely new exhibition.
Blue Memories reflects on the peculiarities of memory, with its dual nature of remembering and forgetting. What memory (personal or collective) chooses to retain and what it lets slip away was a constant question that arose as the artist engaged with Uzunov’s archive. During her residency in his studio, Blagoeva was drawn above all to various aspects of his personal life and to his role as a public figure, teacher, and chairman of the Union of Bulgarian Artists.
Exploring archival photographs, she turned to the creation of a painting in a medium previously foreign to her practice—watercolor. She was especially captivated by the multitude of women’s faces, famous or anonymous, appearing in the archival photographs. It is to these images that Blagoeva dedicates what she calls her watercolor document, using a single color—blue. She creates a monumental composition uniting numerous female faces from Uzunov’s archive. These are women from different eras, with varied roles in society and in the artist’s life, sometimes barely hinted at, shrouded in anonymity, sometimes sharply delineated, detailed, or rendered with caricatural distortion. Among them are Uzunov’s mother, his students, his known or unknown relatives, actresses, writers, artists, and others. Within this constellation, Blagoeva also inserts her own self-portrait, inspired by an archival photograph.
The work is positioned in front of the fireplace in the studio—marginalized in the corner, yet simultaneously placed in a spot with particular symbolic weight. In shaping these images, Blagoeva skillfully combines photographic strategies with the painterly possibilities of watercolor.
While she worked, the studio came alive with numerous conversations and discussions involving artists, art historians, and students. A video was recorded as a result of these encounters, also included in the exhibition. It presents fragments of a dialogue dedicated to Uzunov, to contemporary art, and to Blagoeva’s own practice, with contributions by Luchezar Boyadjiev, Iskra Blagoeva, Adelina Fileva, Dr. Tatyana Dimitrova, Daniela Radeva, Dr. Lyuben Domozetski, and Philip Stoilov.
The museum gallery adjacent to the studio has been entirely transformed by the light of a neon sign, Blue Memories, specially created for the project. Various objects from Uzunov’s archive were carefully studied, and Blagoeva chose to foreground one archival piece, displayed and museologized on a pedestal: a photograph with an inscription on the back. The author of the inscription remains unknown, but according to Blagoeva, among the many photographs, this one possesses a particular sensitivity and poetic charge.
Next to the carefully lit photograph under a glass dome, an unframed, unlit self-portrait of Uzunov is placed on the wall. His pale face emerges from the blue background like a ghost, staring into the sad memories evoked by the neon sign.
Collaborative project by Iskra Blagoeva & Valentina Sciarra
The project 77 ½ is a result of our research carried out in the last two years for the rediscovery of the Bulgarian female rituals, related to the knowledge of nature and its use for the common good. At the beginning, we came across the midsummer ritual that we have chosen as the starting point for the work:
”Herbs harvested for the winter should be 77 and a half for all diseases and for the nameless disease”
It was intriguing for us to think what this mysterious disease was, how we should understand it. We decided that in today’s society the undetermined illness is likely to be sadness. Sadness as the most evident manifestation of stress, anxiety, depression or any other mental disorder widespread in our society, which does not necessarily derive from a specific physical trauma or exceptional event. It belongs to the daily life of each of us and derives mainly from our unhealthy lifestyle, from the intensifying disrespect of biological rhythms, and the growing detachment from the natural reality of the cosmos. In the past centuries, probably since the formation of tribal societies, healing through natural elements and herbs was a knowledge kept and handed down from generation to generation mainly by women, verbally and through numerous collective rituals. This deep experience of life now is disappearing in the total indifference of our society, but it is still alive thanks to groups of women living in remote areas of Bulgaria (and maybe in other not so globally visible parts of world as well). Passing on this precious sacrament and experience to new generations is important in order to preserve the connection with the roots, the past and nature, which also creates an authentic perception of ourselves. In this way, we have the chance to be more than just single individuals isolated in time, disconnected from a living relationship with community and earth. We believe that rethinking of the traditions today is a kind of “chanting”. And the performing of the ritual is not just a repetition, but a whispering power of words, thoughts and strength transmitted through generations. It reveals the will to live, which is always in places in the “here and now”. In this respect, the return to ritual is never an imitation, nor a tool to reach an alternative state of mind. It is a collective and choral act, which we explore mentally and physically as shared knowledge and a power of female sensitivity in the eternity of time.
from exhibition’s statment Iskra Blagoeva and Valentina Sciarra
photo: Martin Atanasov
video documentation of the performance 77 ½ , Alpinarium Park Sofia, Sofia Art Week LINK TO VIDEO
Title : 77 ½ performance Duration : 4.14 minutes Sound : PISTAMASHINA Camera : Michaela Lakova Editing : Valentina Sciarra Original Text : Valentina Sciarra and Iskra Blagoeva
наричане / Chanting Two screen projection Duration : on loop Camera and Editing : Tilmann Rodiger and Raina Teneva
Toplocentrala Sofia, exhibition view:
photo: Kalin Serapionov
This project was made possible thanks to the collaboration of : Toplocentrala New Art Center Sofia (BG) and Vladiya Mihaylova (Director of Visual Art Toplocentrala Sofia) * 77 ½ is the first RTSCI “Toplotcentrala” co-produced exhibition by open call PISTAMASHINA Martin Atanasov, photography SAW 2022 Team (Voin de Voin, Lisette Smits, Michaela Lakova) Tilmann Rödiger, Rayna Teneva, camera and editing Vesselka Stambolieva and Desislava Petrova (The Great Voices of Bulgaria) Prof. Tania Reytan baba Milena, baba Kremena, Zorka ( Banite village ) Nina Blagoeva Ilinka Tchergaroff Cush.be Print Studio Mariela Gemisheva Hyatt Regency Sofia Vera Petrova ( translation )
For this performance we are stepping outside- beyond the protected space of a gallery, but also beyond the poetic metaphor of shared intimacy. The new performative artwork is incorporating itself into the armature of public life and its complex interrelations. The female participants in the project are gathering together, assembling and dismantling 52 metal fragments scaled up and made of reinforced iron from the tattooed lines. The form of the sculpture is ever-changing.
Live performance S.I.S., Paris, production CoolHunt 2024, with the support of ADAGP
S.I.S. live performance, Paris, production CoolHunt 2024, with the support of ADAGP
S.I.S. live performance, Paris, production Coolhunt 2024, with the support of ADAGP
S.I.S. video still, 2022 camera Deyan Parouchev
Upon noticing that here lifeline was interrupted in the middle, Boryana Petkova decides to correct it and continue it with a tattoo, out of her own free will. Iskra Blagoeva suggests to continue the line through her body, as an act of trust, bonding and sharing. This marks the initiation of the project, born from this complementarity between the two artists. It took place on 31.12.2021 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The idea is to create a sisterhood, manifested by the lines running through the bodies of different women, each one selected and invited by the one before. Gathered together, they will thus create an endlessly transforming drawing that will remind and visualize the already existing powerful bond between women. The roles are also being reversed, from a professional and personal point of view: artist – curator, drawing – surface, mother – daughter, friend – colleague, author – performer, etc. This is a performative act that will evolve over time. This project was initiated through an interest in the knowledge of the body as practiced by women. Their connection to witchcraft and the sacred, albeit an alternative one, is still dismissed to this day, when the medical science is still biased towards the female body and the study of the menstrual cycle, female neurodivergent deviations and the menopause. Today, when women’s fundamental rights are once again under threat, they must take their fate into their own hands by defending, upholding and empowering each other.
Joana P.R. Neves
S.I.S. III photo credit Milena Edvig
S.I.S. III video still, 2023, camera Nadegja Oleg Liahova
S.I.S. tatoo lines – each woman chose the place and the size of her line
