Nedko Solakov

NEDKO SOLAKOV "Optimistic Stories"
Opening: 11 June 2010
Duration: 12 June to 15 September 2010

Nedko Solakov’s work Optimistic Stories compasses a series of 123 sepia and ink drawings. His so far most comprehensive series of work, since the 99 Fears shown at documenta 12 that made a great stir, were done within several months and reflect on the crisis. The first drawing starts with the words: “This is me at the beginning of the crisis which started 5 art fairs ago. I’m still wondering what shall I do now…”, dated on 16 December 2008.
Each story constitutes an ironic examination of optimism with its pessimistic surrounding. Personal experiences alternate with fictional and fabulous tales on the reflection of good vs. bad. All figures in the series try hard in loosing against the powerful negative influences. For the artist remains at the end only to wish good luck to his beloved people - a concession of helplessness against the evil in the world and the only dawn of hope that “the bad guys/things will ignore us”.
Ever since the '80s, the Bulgarian artist Solakov has adopted a direct and often ironic artistic language, both in his large-scale installations and in his small-format drawings: the artist tells stories and anecdotes that reflect on details of contemporary life, narratives that sum up the contradictions of existence through the representation of situations, reflections, vicissitudes, expectations, successes and failures.
His regular participation in important exhibitions including the documenta
12 (2007), the Venice Biennial (1993, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2007), the Moscow Biennial (2007), and the
Istanbul Biennial (1992, 1995, 2005) have made him one of the best-known international representatives of Bulgarian artists.

03.02. – 21.04.07
Nedko Solakov
“New Noah's Ark, Stupidity and the Wave”
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

PRESS RELEASE
Arndt & Partner Berlin is delighted to present the fourth solo show of the Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov in the Gallery 1st Floor.
The exhibition “New Noah’s Ark, Stupidity and The Wave” will consist of the expansive installation New Noah’s Ark (first shown at the Istanbul Biennale 1992), the Stupidity Series, one of his typical series of multiple drawings, and one of his characteristic icons: The Wave. All exhibited works present Solakov’s unusual narrative approach, taking the visitor into the artist’s own imaginative, ironical, and humorous cosmos.
Especially the central element of the “new Noah’s Ark” does not seem of this world: a stream of obscure creatures meandering on the gallery’s floor. In the installation, they are accompanied bya painting, a small stone with the inscription “ti” [You], twelve drawings of the ark, a strange sound of rushing water, and a book.
The book enlightens us that the creatures are stranded from an alien planet, on their way into another world and supposed to be rescued by an ordinary man (Noah), after having landed in his bathroom through the water pipes.
A humorous, satirical story with a Biblical reference, written at a time when Bulgarian and other communist societies had to redefine themselves after the political changes; a story which in view of Bulgaria’s very recent joining of the EU is once again, or still, very topical.
As can already be seen in the installation New Noah’s Ark, Solakov uses in his work various media, such as painting, photography, video, and drawing. Next to New Noah’s Ark, the exhibition will also contain the 15-part Stupidity Series of 2006: small-format drawings, tiny pen strokes on handmade paper, which at first sight remind one of the Old Masters, but confuse the beholder with short handwritten text passages. The Wave of 2007 takes a similarly jolting approach, showing a curving Baroque frame and a stark square icon – easily bridging the secular and the sacred, also reflected by the text he uses.
Solakov’s themes circle around mundane, seemingly nonsensical and also personal statements, the status of contemporary art, prevalent forms of viewing art, and the value system in general, and do so in a most lyrical way, usually taking a critical stance.

06.10. – 11.11.06
Nedko Solakov
“Earlier Works”
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Zurich

PRESS RELEASE
The Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov has gained international recognition through his narrative multi-media installations. With a subversive humour, a sense of the absurd and a playful (self-) irony he is processing personal issues as well as formulating critical questions on the context of art, or social subjects.
In his solo show in Zurich he presents a selection of large format polyptychs from 1988 - 1991, which have rarely exhibited or documented up to now. The exhibition, accompanied by a publication with a text by Iara Boubnova, takes account of the fact that these works represent a decisive watershed in Solakov's artistic development. From 1988, the artist, who up to then had worked primarily with painting and drawing, turned to other techniques, such as assemblages and installations, and introduced written text as a means of expression.
The works, produced directly before and during the fall of the iron curtain, make transparent relationship between historical changes in society and the work of the artist being affected by them. In his polyptychs, frequently run through with texts, he combines old master style paintings with assemblages of found objects, or sketchy caricature drawings. He reveals a subtle satirical humour while tackling his experiences, fears and doubts in a time of political and social upheaval.
Nedko Solakov, born in 1957 in Cherven Briag, Bulgaria, is internationally the most well known artist of the younger generation of Bulgarians. He studied wall painting at the Art Academy of Sofia, where he has since lived and worked. Having participated in numerous exhibitions, e.g. at the Venice Biennials (1993, 1999, 2001, 2003), he has gained attention worldwide. He has held solo shows in museums such as P.S.1, New York (2001); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2003) and Kunsthaus Zurich (2005). His first retrospective was shown at Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art Contemporain, Luxembourg, at the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö (both in 2004), and the O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz, Austria (2005).

5.5.- 25.5. 2002
Nedko Solakov
„Studies for Romantic Landscapes with Missing Parts (and tips for the average global citizen)"
Solo Exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

Arndt & Partner are pleased to announce "Studies for a Romantic Landscape with Missing Parts (and tips for the average global citizen)" (2000) by the Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov, which was so far only presented once in an exhibition, entitled Leaving the Island at the Pusan Metropolitan Art Museum in Korea (2000).
Upon first investigation of Solakov's narrative series they appear as their title suggests - studies for a Romantic landscape, executed in oil on canvas board, seemingly related to the European tradition of 19th century landscape painting. Whether it be the dramatic mountainscapes set against the gleaming sunset, the chiaroscuro making visible an intimate circle of people sitting around a fire in the pitch-dark night or the lonely lovers, contemplating the vastness of the seascape, the academic style and choice of subject matter suggest a traditional painter at work.

As one has a closer look, however, a sense of irritation sets in, as the mountain is not reflected in the sea, the fire supposedly warming the circle of people is missing, and the bench on which the two lovers should be sitting is not painted at all. For the 'unaccustomed eye of the average global citizen', Solakov even solves the riddle of the missing part by hinting at it in the title of the work.

As in previous work groups, the "Studies for a Romantic Landscape with Missing Parts" reflect the artist's potent strategy of combining conventional techniques of draughtsmanship and knowledge of art history with the use of playful irony, an emphasis on the absurd and a subversive sense of humour. His narrative installations have a conceptual freedom, successfully triggering a range of questions and issues about the status and relevance not only of contemporary painting and the context in which it is presented, but also of general values and beliefs upheld in Western culture.

Nedko Solakov, born in 1957 in Cherven Briag, Bulgaria, lives and works in Sofia and graduated in mural painting from the Art Academy in Sofia in 1981. Since 1984, he has participated in numerous international exhibitions in Europe and the US. Among his forthcoming projects are exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Casino Luxembourg, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt as well as several solo shows at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Museo do Chiado in Lisbon and the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

05.09. - 14.11.1998
Nedko Solakov “Silly”
Solo exhibiton at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

20.04. - 02.06.1996
Nedko Solakov (BUL): „Desires“
Solo exhibition at Arndt & Partner, Berlin

PRESS RELEASE
NEDKO SOLAKOV „DESIRES“

Longing, demand, wanting, wish, curiosity: very differently colored and variously intense emotions swing to the title of Nedko Solakov´s exhibition- his first in a private gallery in western Europe.
Since his participation at the 3rd International Istanbul Biennial in 1992, where his installation „New Noah´s Ark“ got great attention, Solakov has turned out to be one of the most important bulgarian artists of the international contemporary art world. He took part in Aperto 93, 4th Istanbul Biennial, Sao Paulo Biennial 94. He will participate in „Manifesta I“ - the first European Biennial, Rotterdam, June 96; „Beyond Belief“, ICA Philadelphia, September 96; „Scream“, Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen, November 96 and „Enclosures“, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, November 96.

From 1994-95 he worked in Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin by a grant of Philip Morris Foundation and set into scene the very convincing story of a young curator (Mr. Curator, please...) who was asked by a group of “very rich and sentimental“ people to select the world´s best altarpiece and is getting pretty oppressed by the ghosts of the deceased masters during his investigation.
In the gallery Arndt & Partner Nedko Solakov is now dedicated to the many-sided topic of human needs and demands. As divers as the subject are the artists materials that he is using: classical drawings with pencil or ink, oil on canvas, three dimensional objects, video, wall-drawings with chalk or text written directly on the wall. „The media respects the content“, comments Solakov his choice of working materials.

All of the works are assembled under the category of „Desire“, but many of them have second titles or subtitles, the classical drawings „Once upon a time...“ are dedicated to „the desire to change the present, future and past“. The “oil on canvas“ photos of some of his installations speak of the „extreme desire of the avantgarde artist his art to look in a classical way“, but on the other hand there is the „extreme desire of the classical artist his art to look in avantgarde way“ as well.
This kind of „split personality“ also reveals itself through the wall drawing called „Sins“:
white ink drawings on black paper are pinned directly on a black painted wall telling about the“ desire to specify what is good and what is bad“. Extreme opposites, light and darkness,innocence and evil, black and white, seriousness but irony and sarcasm as well determine this work, but Solakov is definetely not trying to postulate moral values, but is trying to get over that thin line that is separating the imagination of the artist from the imagination of the public.

He is posing questions:“ What if? Why not? Do I really want to live like that?“ His answers are not definitiv, but are creating new questions. The discussion does not end, is endless, moves through the room in spirals, reflects and meditates, would be horrifying and overwhelming, if there would not be the „minor sins“ as well, like the curiosity to read a dirty joke, that is covered by a red tissue and could be revealed any time.

Opening: 20.04. , 17.00- 19.00
Duration of the exhibition: 20.04. - 02.06.96
A catalogue will be published.