Dan Perjovschi & Nedko Solakov : Walls & Floor (without the ceiling)
For the artists Dan Perjovschi (Romania) and Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria), it has long since been normal to work internationally and to exchange views and experiences in worldwide networks. Their artistic works are an impressive example for the fact that art has overcome national borders and clichés which still have to be digested politically within the framework of European integration.
Dan Perjovschi and Nedko Solakov, who both received a classical-academic training, have a lot in common at first glance: they are both from South Eastern Europe, they like to critically explore the political and social transformation processes taking place in the post-communist societies, the opportunities and risks of a united Europe, and the mechanisms of the global art world – as well as the resulting consequences for their identity as artists between ‘East and West’. Both develop their ideas for specific contexts; they start out from the medium of drawing and extend it to room installations and performances by taking over walls, rooms and whole buildings. However, beyond this common ground their artistic practices are very independent.
Nedko Solakov, who was trained in classical mural painting, is a storyteller, who deals with universal themes as well as autobiographical moments. The particular attraction of his conceptually designed, cross-media works lies in the incomparable interplay between simplicity and complexity, seriousness and humour, precision and absurdity. Central themes of his artistic works are, alongside his identity as an artist, the critical analysis of the ‘arts system’, traditional representation systems and the expectations which are usually associated with art.
Dan Perjovschi sees his role as an artist in the post-communist era as an eminently political one. He works for the critical publication Magazin 22, which was established shortly after Ceausescu’s overthrow. Perjovschi consciously decided to use the medium of drawing, which has always been considered the most direct of all artistic methods. “I want to capture a complex issue with a few lines. My revolution is taking place here, in a drawing measuring 10 x 10 cm.” His political graffiti are quickly dashed-off snapshots, which make an issue out of macropolitical events in a highly sensitive and sharply ironic way, and which contextualise them with personal experiences. The bourgeois separation between private and public-political worlds is unknown to him: “Everything I see is related to the way I see things and what happens to and inside me.”
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