Credo BOX: Венцеслав Костов

For Her, 2004

Ventseslav Kostov

29 октомври – 1 декември, 2024

Ventseslav Kostov is perhaps better known for his “reflections,” which were among the first examples of site-specific art that arose in Bulgaria in the 1990s. Some of the spaces of his activity still exist; others have changed or disappeared, and the memory of them will be more associated with their fleeting reflections. Just as the artist’s “reflections” carry their own genre indeterminacy (Yana Kostova is inclined to classify them more as critical design), so it is with the object, the subject of the current exhibition.

At first glance, “For Her” is a necklace of razor blades, intended as a gift and carrying an aggressiveness in its gesture. The necklace seems to fit into a line of works using products from our surroundings and thriving on the aggressiveness of artificially created human artifacts—as in the series “Traps” from 2006, by Finnish artist Kaisu Koivisto, in which women’s slippers, pacifiers, etc. are constructed from fish hooks, and the “harmful quality” of the ostensibly “innocent” objects is clearly discernible. In our case, it is only so at first glance. The necklace as a gift for her does not want to hurt, but to protect. It is constructed in such a way that the cutting parts of the blades are facing outwards towards the world. In this ironic ambiguity lies a significant part of the meaning and significance of this work. It remains classical, in the sense of an embodied idea, but also avant- garde—disrupting conventional, predictable forms of understanding.
Ivo Milev, curator

Ventseslav Kostov (1944-2006) was born in Svishtov. He graduated “Industrial Design” at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland (1974) and works at the Institute For Design and Aesthetics in Sofia. He started working in the field of environmental art at the beginning of the 1970s and is among the first contemporary Bulgarian artists. However, he decides to return to Bulgaria where it appears impossible to continue working in the field of contemporary art during the next twenty years. Kostov participates within a number of group exhibitions among which in Repassage Gallery (1974), The National Gallery (2004), The Union of Bulgarian Artist (2005) as well as in contemporary art festivals such as S.O.F.A., Nyborg, Denmark, Process-Space, Balchik, Sofia Underground. His first solo show appears post mortem in 2017 at Credo Bonum Gallery, curated by Peter Tsanev.

The project is realised with the support of Haven Foundation.

Credo BOX is a small exhibition space, part of the Credo Bonum Gallery, but with its own program. Located at the entrance of the mother gallery, the BOX is a bright niche in which chamber projects of artists are displayed. It is a place for a work of art, for an artistic motto, for a drawing, a photograph, an audio or video work, but also for a small, focused artistic gesture, for words and messages.