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• Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art • 8 March – 1 April 2012, opening March 8, 6 pm• Curator: Maria Vassileva Artists: Adelina Popnedeleva, Alla Georgieva, Bora Petkova, HR-Stamenov, Ivan Moudov, Kiril Prashkov, Krassimir Terziev, Kosta Tonev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Mina Minov, Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova, Nestor Kovachev, Nina Kovacheva, Peter Tzanev, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Rada Boukova, Samuil Stoyanov, Sasho Stoitzov, Stefan Nikolaev, Stefania Batoeva, Valentin Stefanoff, Valio Tchenkov, Vassil Simittchiev, Vikenti Komitski, Vladimir Ivanov Marcel Duchamp had an ambiguous attitude to exhibitions and That is why the project “Why Duchamp?” belongs here – in the museums1. He never had a one-artist show and participated in few half-finished as a building but not quite existing as a museum group shows. He took on curating and designing several shows institution new space. This is where we have to ask – when does of the Surrealists. As the founder of the Société Anonyme, Inc. he contemporaneity start for us from the point of view of today? was responsible for many others. For his project “Boîte-en-valise” Are there the notions of “here” and “there” in the logic of such a Duchamp made scale models of 69 of his works in an edition of countdown? Is Duchamp the dividing threshold (for Kosta Tonev 350. Since the beginning of the 1960’s numerous retrospectives artists are only those who have heard of Duchamp)? Are there any of Duchamp’s works were organized in Europe and the USA. He fields left unexplored but suggested by Duchamp? What is art? conceded to the production of replicas of his ready-mades and What is the difference between an original and a copy? Is there art these are now in a lot of museums. without institutions? Ultimately – what kind of a museum do we Such a practice of both participation and withdrawal prescribes a need? variety of interpretative possibilities. Just like his works Duchamp’s The debate on such issues, as seen through the prism of worldly gestures are at the same time simple and full of meanings. Duchamp’s legacy, started long before the intention to have such Each “transfer” into a concrete context seems to simplify the a museum was even “born” here – from Luchezar Boyadjiev’s problem. At the same time we are tempted to make such transfers “Simultaneous séance on 9 chess boards. Homage to Marcel all the time. We are using the 125 anniversary of Duchamp’s birth Duchamp” (1995) to the cycle “Natural Modernism” (2004) by Kiril in order to once again discuss with him and about him. Prashkov. There is a necessity to expand the debate through both Pravdoliub Ivanov. Untitled (Curly Brush), 2009 When in 2003 Ivan Moudov started compiling his collection of art works and texts. The participating artists were asked to answer “Fragments” it was impossible not to associate this work with either – “Why Duchamp?” We wanted to focus on the personal attitudes Duchamp or the non-existent museum of contemporary art – as opposed to the uniformed use of the Duchamp label. Today the fragments of art works arranged in boxes that look like suitcases… reference to his name is often routine and sometimes a simplistic Naturally, the differences are obvious as well. By making copies of assumption. his own works Duchamp is diluting the notion of the original. That is I was surprised by the answer given by Sasho Stoitzov: “The radical a provocative challenge for the existing museums. Moudov insists thinking of Duchamp had a direct influence in Bulgaria at the on the originality of the work, though fragmented, as a substitute end of the 1980’s. The ‘ready-made’ works were the strongest of the missing museum. challenge presented to the formalism of the imposed notions of The dialogue with Duchamp in Bulgaria started long before this ‘plasticity’ in art”. I doubt however that at the end of the 1980’s in exhibition and it involves the subject of the museum as well. Bulgaria there were all that many people who had even heard of the name Marcel Duchamp. It is a fact though that the transformation of visual arts here did go through the purifying power of the found object. In the beginning there were the objects related to the old traditional Bulgarian folklore way of life – wheel from horse driven carriages, wooden fences, shovels and pitchforks. They had a potential for ritualistic refusal of worn-out formulas and a return to unpolluted sources. The chronology of contemporary Bulgarian art is full of ‘ready-mades’2. I suspect that happened unconsciously. The Duchamp ‘bug’ caught on with us… Duchamp has influenced generations of artists – in a hard to define way but forcefully and lastingly. He was a combination of contradictory elements – responsible and negligent, precise and absent, consistent and compromising. Maybe that is why there is not one single text on his work that would exhaust the subject. There is always something more to say. We are offering here more statements on this elusive figure. The works in the show demonstrate a parallel of diversity and contradiction – they in turn adore, repeat, analyze, comment, and reject. Some works remain within Duchamp’s aesthetics; others are referencing it while insisting on its ethical legacy. We get a narrative in result – from the urinal to the water fountain, and from the object to the museum. Maria Vassileva Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova. Figaro, 2012 1 “All exhibitions of painting or sculpture make me ill. And I’d rather not be involved in them.” Quoted after: Elena Filipovic. A Museum That is Not, e-flux journal, #4, 2009/3 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/a-museum-that-is-not/ Stefan Nikolaev. Candélabre, 2010 2 In 1993 the exhibition “Object Bulgarian Style” was organized by the Courtesy the artist and Gallery Michel Rein, Paris. „Holy Spirit Rain Down”, 2010, Club of (eternally) Young Artists. 6 Shipka St. Gallery, Sofia, Curators: Iara Les Eglises, Contemporary art center, Chelles, France Boubnova, Maria Vassileva, Diana Popova. Kiril Prashkov Samuil Stoyanov. Large small glass, 2012 Natural Bicycle Wheel, 2004 Luchezar Boyadjiev. Descending Body, 2012 Everything that an artist appropriates becomes art because of object for these lands here and the bicycle wheel presupposes its interpretation in a particular context. Duchamp invented the some sort of an effort in any case… There were obviously not concept of open art where the viewer is on equal terms with the enough words available to us to renounce the anti-art – it was author as far as the interpretation of the work goes. Hi cleared the playing on rejection anyways on its own. There was also the road for understanding art as communication. sweeping, as I thought of it, Duchamp irony there which was a However, in order for a work to be recognized as art it has to counterpoint to the numerous, otherwise exceptional artworks be acknowledged by the institutions – museums, galleries, art without moustache, that I was already exposed to. So, I was critics, curators. The liberal; idea of Duchamp is a new utopia wondering if this irony was not actually the reason why his brothers, which is clashing with the oppositions between individual and a sculptor and a painter, choose different version of the family collective, nature and culture. The non-material understanding of name – to dissociate from Marcel, the mutt… art is clashing with the material context which is embodied by the Kiril Prashkov institutions. Boris Groys compares Duchamp’s revolution in art with the communist revolution1. Once a long time ago (at least 7 years back) I was asked how can Both these revolutions are aiming at the expropriation and I tell if somebody is or isn’t an artist. Why is it that somebody is an collectivization of private property either real or symbolic. In this artist and somebody else who is also drawing and “creating” is not? sense one can claim that some forms of contemporary art and (I must admit that I was quite zealous in my views) Or why such practice in Internet are now functioning as a symbolic communist things as, let’s say, the paintings sold at the sea cost are not art? I collectivization within the environment of capitalist economy. remember (although I do not like to quote myself) that my answer Bora Petkova. Nail, Ribbon and Hook, 2012. Photo: HR-Stamenov According to Groys the liberal software is clashing with the capitalist was that I have only one criteria to make a judgment – only those hardware. who have heard of Duchamp could be artists. If you do not know The role of the artist is changing too. The institutions of today no about Duchamp it does not matter how “creative” you are; you are longer need the artist as a traditional author-producer. On the something else. contrary, today the artist is more often hired for a period of time as a Kosta Tonev worker in order to realize this or that institutional project. My contribution to this show is the video „C’est la vie” not only In the high school for fine art I went to our perspective teacher because it is made via an “appropriation” of a fragment from real life, claimed that there are only two questions confronting the artist: or because it was already produced, or because it was already titled how and why. At 14 years of age together with a group of school “C’est la vie” thus coinciding with the name of Duchamp’s alter ego friends we were exercising Renaissance techniques – layers in Rrose Sélavy. It is mainly because it reveals human nature that is grisaille, over painting, etc.

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