THE REPRESENTATIVE EXHIBITION "DIPLOMACY AND ART" IS GUESTING ON MARCH 3 AT THE BULGARIAN CULTURAL AND INFORMATION CENTER IN SKOPJE
The representative exhibition "Diplomacy and Art" of paintings from the Art Fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be opened in the new space of the Bulgarian Cultural and Information Center in Skopje, on the occasion of the commemoration of the 145th anniversary of the Liberation from Ottoman rule and the National Day of Bulgaria - 3rd of March. The opening was attended by our country's ambassador to the Republic of North Macedonia, Angel Angelov, Mihail Artemontsev - an expert at DKI and curator of the exhibition, guests, journalists and connoisseurs.
For decades, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria has been creating a collection of works of fine art remarkable in terms of volume and artistic quality. In the Ministry building in Sofia alone, this collection numbers over 400 works, and nearly 2,000 are exhibited in the Bulgarian missions abroad.
The current exhibition "Diplomacy and Art" is organized by the State Institute for Culture of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and presents 22 paintings by well-established Bulgarian artists from the post-war period, who managed to preserve the achievements in the field of fine arts from previous generations of artists, adding their creative pursuits. Authors who worked in the 1940s and 1950s are represented - Konstantin Shtarkelov, Denyu Chokanov, Atanas Mihov, Zdravko Aleksandrov, Vasil Stoilov, followed by those who worked in the 1960s - Vladimir Manski, Vanya Decheva, Todor Dinov, Boris Nenov, Vladimir Goev. Picturesque canvases, landscapes prevail. This can be explained by the specific function of the art fund – to create an aesthetic atmosphere in the official premises of the Ministry and foreign missions. At the same time, following the development of artistic expression over the years, we will also discover the new trends of the 70s and 80s in the art of the next generations. They are related to the simplification of the artistic image, the construction of a national style with original plastic interpretations, new materiality, the emergence of associative painting, monochrome imagery, etc. Nayden Petkov, Andrey Lekarski, Georgi Bozhilov, Yordan Katsamunski, Svetlin Rusev are represented here, followed by Georgi Baev, Svilen Blazhev, Stoyan Tsanev, Veliko Marinchevsky, Ivan Milev.
The list of authors presented in the exhibition ends with the contemporary artist Alzek Mishev. His miniature on a board recreates his performance "Swimming across the Atlantic" /1979 - 1982/, where Mishev "crossed" the Atlantic Ocean, swimming tens of kilometers a day in the pool of the ocean liner "Queen Elizabeth - 2".
This exhibition is a continuation of the initial exhibition from 2019 - "Diplomacy and Art", dedicated to 140 years since the establishment of the Bulgarian Diplomatic Service, which was presented with great success in a number of national and regional museums and galleries - Sofia, Ruse, Kyustendil, Blagoevgrad , Veliko Tarnovo, Kazanlak. In 2022, the exhibition was successfully presented in the National Museum of Montenegro, Cetinje, in the Museum of Literature and Theater Art in Sarajevo and in the National Gallery, Cifte Hamam, in Skopje.
The exhibition is realized in partnership between the State Institute for Culture of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Bulgarian Cultural and Information Center in Skopje, with the media assistance of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.
The exhibition catalog of the exhibition, which will be on view in Skopje until 23 May, can be viewed here.