10+1 Paintings / Exhibition by Nedko Solakov

Opening: Thursday, 3 February, 18:00 – 20:00 

The exhibition is open until 5 March 2022.

Credo Bonum Gallery, 2 Slavyanska Str., entrance from Benkovski Str. 

In the summer and autumn of 2021, Nedko Solakov created a series of 10 paintings, all in the same format. For these works, he chose the classic size of 130/162 cm (standardized in 19th-century France for figurative painting). As soon as he finished the series, he realized that the choice of this size in his work was not accidental. He has been working with so-called “French formats” since his student years in the 1970s. Today, the latest series of 10 paintings, arranged in the order of their creation, are on display in Credo Bonum Gallery, accompanied by one “+” painting. It is a mystical landscape created in 1987, the first of nearly 50 paintings in this format painted since then. 

Nedko Solakov is a brilliant storyteller. In these paintings he simultaneously paints and narrates, adding text directly to the canvases in his trademark style. Whether among intense picturesque spots that immerse the canvas in the hot geyser of summer heat, or in an abstract black abyss, or in an open blue sky, tiny people live with their worries and joys. We find stories about a “certified moron”, about a “man who wants to radically change his life by going back into his mother’s womb”, about the lie that was “asked if she could possibly not lie today”, about “sinners feeling okay in hell”, and many others. In one of the paintings, the artist depicted himself, while the text below reads: “Adapting to the surrounding world, to its non-alive part first”. 

Since the early 1990s, Nedko Solakov (b. 1957, Cherven Bryag, Bulgaria; lives in Sofia) has exhibited extensively in Europe and the US. His work was featured in Aperto’93 (Venice Biennial); the 48th, 49th, 50th and 52nd Venice Biennial; the 3rd, 4th and 9th Istanbul Biennial; São Paulo’94; Manifesta 1, Rotterdam; the 2nd and 4th Gwangju Biennial; the 5th Lyon Biennial, Sonsbeek 9, Arnhem, the 4th and 5th Cetinje Biennial, the 1st Lodz Biennial; the 7th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates; the 3rd Tirana Biennial; the 2nd Seville Biennial; the 2nd Moscow Biennial; documenta 12; 16th Sydney Biennial; Prospect 1, New Orleans Biennial, Singapore Biennial 2011, dOCUMENTA (13), Kathmandu Triennale, 1st Riga International Biennial for Contemporary Art and Lahore Biennale 2. He had solo shows at Museu do Chiado, Lisbon; Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam; CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Centre d’Art Santa Monica, Barcelona; Kunsthaus Zurich; Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli; Sofia City Art Gallery; Galleria Borghese, Rome; Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg; BOZAR, Brussels; ICA Sofia, La Panacee, Montpellier and Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. In 2003-2005 an extensive mid-career “A 12 1/3 (and even more) Year Survey” was presented at Casino Luxembourg, Rooseum Malmoe and O.K Centrum Linz, and in 2008-2009 the “Emotions” solo project was exhibited at Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, and Institut Mathildenhoehe, Darmstadt. In 2011-2012 his retrospective “All in Order, with Exceptions” was presented at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Fondazione Galleria Civica Trento (“All in (My) Order, with Exceptions”), S.M.A.K., Ghent and Fundação de Serralves, Porto. His works belong to more than fifty international museums and public collections, among them MoMA New York, Tate Modern, London and Center Pompidou, Paris.