Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Museumstrasse 32
+41.71.242 06 71
St.Gallen
Nedko Solakov
Emotions
February 28-May 10, 2009
The things we like (shall I say, the good things?) invariably drive us to reflect on ourselves. […] In this sense, liking is an egocentric feeling, pulling the world (the artwork) towards oneself. All of this can of course be articulated using another, more elevated style. Now it suffices to say that Nedko Solakov’s works urge me to reflect on myself, my fears, and my pleasures.
— Georgi Gospodinov
Light spots on the floor of the dimly lit space make small still-lives become visible: a plastic flower – with a handwritten text: THE BAD NEWS: HE WAS DEAD. THE GOOD NEWS: THE FLOWER ON HIS GRAVE WILL LAST FOREVER. The installation titled Good News, Bad News by Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov (b. 1957 in Cherven Briag) is mysterious at first sight, but proves to be a sly commentary on human existence. The same is true for his small drawings that Solakov has executed in numerous museum — mostly in places where you would never expect it, next to a window, on a radiator, underneath a fire extinguisher. They all tell short stories of daily experiences, or they comment on the conditions of institutions, while at the same time turning both into the realm of the absurd. These drawing interventions however are only one aspect of Solakov’s far-reaching, continually escalating, and formally hardly containable work. It represents in fact one big attack n the demand for perfection, finality, and clarity. Looking at the many forms his work can take, it can be said that Solakov aims to create an encyclopaedia of the absurd, the remote: a history of deviations, differences, embarrassments, and aborted utopias.
The collapse of the Communist system in the late 1980s significantly influenced his work, and, at the same time, it spurred him on to search for the new language of his own that would adequately capture the complexity and fragility of our reality. His drawings, texts, videos, photographs, performances, installations, sculptures and murals question what are apparently collective truths as well as the conditions of the art market; they use his own publicly exposed fears to reflect upon failure as a metaphor for human existence and discover paradox as a dominant structure in the political ways of the world. Solakov has the ability to take all these different themes and put them into narratives that maintain an exact balance between a poetic, rhapsodic joy in the narrative and constant, ironic breaks. It is exactly this ability that makes his body of work not only wholly inimitable, but also highly entertaining and humorous.
His participation in both the Venice Biennale and the documenta 12 in 2007 made clear that Solakov is one of the most eminent artists in contemporary art. His work was seen in solo exhibitions in prominent institutions such as P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York (2001), Casino Luxembourg, Forum d’art contemporain, O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz and Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö in 2004 or at the BA-CA Kunstforum in Vienna in 2007. As early as in 1993 his work was shown in the Aperto section of the 45th Venice Biennale, followed by further participations in international group shows such as the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, the 5th Istanbul Biennale in 2005 or the 16th Sydney Biennale in 2008. In Switzerland his work was shown early on in the Basics-exhibition 2002 at the Kunsthalle Berne or in Shifting Identities in 2008 at the Kunsthaus Zürich, where three years earlier he had his first solo museum project in Switzerland: Leftovers – a selection of my unsold pieces from the private galleries I work with.
Emotions at the Kunstmuseum St.Gallen will be Nedko Solakov’s first comprehensive solo show in Switzerland. It will feature early work such as Top Secret (1989-90), series of drawings and installations such as Good News, Bad News (1998-present) as well as work especially made for the exhibition project. The exhibition was co-produced with the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt.
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive publication with texts by Ralf Beil, Stephan Berg, Konrad Bitterli and Georgi Gospodinov as well as numerous notes by the artist himself.
"Everything in this work is moving up and down at the same time […] knowing that ultimately not everything will turn out well, and that none of his fairy tales try to achieve a “happy ending,” the sad, normative reality does not shatter on the ground, but instead maintains the balance of a sleepwalker — more astonished and surprised than afraid, and full of insatiable curiosity about the wonderful stories life has in store."
— Stephan Berg |
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Nedko Solakov, Some Nice Things to Enjoy While You are Making a Living, 2008.
Nedko Solakov, From Fears #84, 2006-07.
Nedko Solakov, From Fears #5, 2006-2007.
Nedko Solakov, Some Nice Things to Enjoy While You are Making a Living, 2008.
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Nedko Solakov, Help Yourself (Russian Roulette), 1998. |
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