FORTRESS – FESTUNG exhibition in the space of the Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art
article: Lilyana Karadjova
What are the fortresses of the modern world and how do we penetrate their matter and significance? This pressing question which has taken on a new and specifically European meaning was raised in the space of the Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art in September 2015. Some of the most well-known and active young Bulgarian artists came together to give their interpretation of the idea of the fortress to integrate the archaic term as an abstraction, a medium and a strategy in the geopolitics of the EU. The theme is developed in a variety of classical and new media techniques, forms and image structures. In this exclusively heterogeneous voice of the exhibition one of the big potentials of art is put to the test – to express the invisible, the complicated processes of the personal and social transformation.
Alexander Valchev, House in the Middle of the Street (2014) series Am I Living in a Box?, Inkjet print on photo paper
The event is the continuation of the active politics of the Goethe Institute to go beyond the boundaries of the international cultural collaborations, in uniting public and private institutions, in presenting concepts of a humane world of understanding and plurality. A topical subject for Bulgaria because the Balkans have a strategic position as a Southeastern border of Fortress Europe and today it is once more put to the test. It is as much geopolitical, as it is national in that it concerns the cultural identity of the Bulgarian artists. This is why the interpretations of the authors suggest their views on the artistic dimensions of the outer fortifications – the barricades, the wire nets and the increased police control as they penetrate the inner, personal life of the European citizen evermore fearful of enemy invasion.
Galya Yotova, yesterdaytodaytomorrow (2015)
To realize the exhibition Fortress-Festung gathers a team of several institutions different as a structure, functions and goals: Nadezhda Dzhakova of the Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art, Svilen Stefanov from the National Academy of Art, Vanja Koubadinska and Enzio Wetzel of the Goethe Institute in Sofia. The joint project adopts the politics of the Geothe Institute directed towards cultural dialogue and exchange, while the artworks shall also be presented at the UAMO 2016 festival in Munchen together with the works of artists from another 10 cities amongst which are Athens, Mexico city, Amsterdam, Vienna and Prague.
Kamen Starchev, White Fields (2015) pigment print on paper
How do we interpret “fortress” in the museum institution of SAMSI (Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art)? In the exhibition space some of the rules for exhibiting are overlooked by presenting seven isolated works of sculpture, site-specific objects, painting , graphic art and photography – digital and analogue, short films together. The visual artists with individual participation are Alexander Valchev, Galia Yotova, Ivaylo Hristov, Kamen Starchev, Ludmil Lazarov and Yana Lozeva. In their interpretations we see the fortress as a symbol, structure or function, but also a new meaning filtered through the modern, post-modern, hyper-modern which includes the subjects of isolationism and escapism, the possible implanted and partial identities. United in a voice, the authors formulate the question of how the modern European creates and inhabits fortresses and what they actually represent.
Yana Lozeva, Immediate Light (2014) series
If we enter the exhibition with a dictionary definition in mind, then in a fortress we would be looking for an enclosing defense structure. We are tackling a word of medieval origin which means stronghold, fortification, enclosing and safe place. If it is a function, then it is a structure which must withstand a possible siege. If it is a structure, the fortress is organized from within and protected from the outside. If it is a material, it is resilient and steady. If it is a symbol of a political model, then it is ever-changing Europe closing its geopolitical borders and most probably turning away from its universality. Each of these meanings brings up questions which are answered through the artworks in the exhibition.
Ludmil Lazarov, Blue (2015) series
An unorthodox approach is the presentation of the three short films created during a seminar organized by the Goethe Institute in Sofia under the guidance of German director Richard Blank. Alongside the visual artists, the directors and actors in the space of the fortress are Anna Nikolova, Elena Genovska, Milena Ilieva, Silvia Pesheva, Maya Kisyova, Smilen Savov, Atanas Djidrov and Silvia Marinova. The films direct the spectators towards the subject of the stability of the human nucleus/body and the possibilities of self identification. Some models of the functioning relationships world-human and city-nature represent the modern western and Christian ideal of the uniqueness of the individual and its gradual replacement. The global financial fortress has imposed our survival via the daily consumption of false and imposed identifications. The internal dialogue and hopes are filtered through the stereotypes adopted by the street life and mass media. The subject is very much of present-day interest after the Eastern Block finally fell apart, while the chronology of the video studies the transition, the gradual infiltration of the “factory behavior” in the social chaos of the transition period. The factory man walks the streets, gazes at us from the magazine covers of the newspaper stands. He is an active participant in the absurdities of society which acts as a space to move from a personal fortress to the possible other of another person. Without plunging into the philosophical dimensions of the fortress as a term or examining it in terms of the pressing political or cultural context, the experimental films are the final stop of the exhibition. Exit or entrance, the films offer us the particular phenomenon of consumer serfdom.
From the entrance of the museum the spectator is welcomed by the installation “Front View” by Ivaylo Hristov who introduces us to the political aspect of the subject. Our notion of stability is under conceptual attack by the props of the artwork consisting of a wooden construction, a pencil drawing, LED lights and objects. Ivaylo Hristov defines the work as a statue of the religious, cultural and social values whereas the image of the individual is erased. The author presents “Fortress Europe” as a haven for anonymous factory people. The work performs a desacralization – the spectator stands above the statues, set without podiums, exhibited on the floor. The symbols are very familiar, the visual layout intentionally looks for the prop effect and the expression renders void the signifying potential of the material and the forms. The artwork bears a warning to the ceased identity of the artist.
Alexander Valchev presents a philosophical and existential dimension to the fortress enfolded into form and image. The gigantic sculpture of cardboard develops the idea of personal isolation, “self-communicating” with the series “I am living in a box” realized in acrylic, pencil and the photograph “A house amidst the street”. Although Alexander Valchev actively works with cardboard in the last years, with the fortress the material becomes a symbol of the affordable dwelling. In the street culture of the XX c., the cardboard box is always accessible for the beggar, the immigrant, for the marginal person… and why not the home of the free artist? The work expresses the anti-utopic idea of human survival and that of the European strategy for the preservation of the individual.
The sculpture of Alexander Valchev is a comment on the existential weariness, alienation and the instinct for survival, as well as the discontinued social functioning which is periodically self-imposed by artists due to the specific character of the artistic process. Similar to the sculpture communicating with his series set on the wall, the artist lives in a situation of constant internal dialogue. He observes his work as the cardboard fortress continues its existence in the photograph of the home made of cardboard boxes in the street. It continues its visual communication on an existential level – can the world with all its objects, symbols and action fit in a box? The material of the social marginality is exalted to the level of a symbol of an affordable fortress for every man. The freedom loving artist comes closer to the migrating fugitive.
Another action in the space of the fortress is made by Kamen Starchev in his “Observation” and “White Fields”, pigment print on paper. An epigram says that the mind is a fortress of limitless spaces. Kamen Starchev creates such an abstraction. The fortress is presented as a collision of the organic and the machine. The limitations occur from the “regimes” of the mind which like a monochrome geometric object are trying to break free from the landscape. In this struggle the images become thinner as a material and almost reaching that clear form which could free it from the materialness of the fortress. Yet again, the horizon is still unconquered and the geometric object continues mechanically repeating itself. The abstract definitions of the mind stay within the spiral of the historic situations and Fortress Europe is just one of them.
An interpretation is given by Galya Yotova as well which she delves into via the possibilities of the photographic medium. The series “YesterdayTodayTomorrow” is shot at a 18 c. fortress in the city of Terezin, Czech Republic which she visits twice within 10 years. A sequence of 12 photographs taken one after the other disclose a figure running in front of a wall – now striped of its historical context, seen as an object which is “passed by and which continues”. The photographed object seen as “just a stone wall” brings a new meaning to the fortress. Galya Yotova puts emphasis on the key word for its new function – the fortress does not limit, it only en-circles. The passing figure raises the question of how we see things. Can the human identity become undetectable for the all seeing eye of the camera in the serfdom of web of information?
The dimensions of the fortress are enhanced with two more projects – Yana Lozeva and Ludmil Lazarov examine the boundaries of photography and painting. In the series “Immediate Light” of classical black and white photography Yana Lozeva plunges us into the light sensitive emulsion as if in a separate reality. From a general view of a crowd during traffic hour, details are selected and cropped. The fortress of the frame has become smaller, while the particles of the emulsion add as if a fracture which gives a monumental air to this short instant.
Ludmil Lazarov takes a look at painting as a safeguarded artistic fortress in “Yellow, Grey, Blue”- oil paints on canvas. The color gives meaning to the isolated reality or rather an ecosystem. The war of the colors takes place on the legendary fortress walls of the canvas , the mask and it is fixated on the expression of color.
Each artistic interpretation discloses a different transformation of the idea of the fortress. Two key words that walk us through the political, philosophical and existential ideas are the terms isolationism and migration. In a psychological aspect, isolationism is a defense mechanism and its effect is the alienation of thought and action from the context and the detachment of all associative contact. In the space of the exhibition, the fortress sets the artwork in isolation, while the spectator migrates. Gathered amidst the walls of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the works of the artists do come into active dialogue and build imaginary barriers through its halls similar to “Fortress Europe”. The project gives insight to the situation with an unconventional approach giving the spectator a new awareness of freedom. He is migrating, moving through the web of associations and is the author of the imaginary map of the exhibition.