Public Republic

For the sixth consecutive year, Plovdiv will welcome art lovers from around Bulgaria to its annual Night of Museums and Galleries. This year, the program is organized in two days – 24 and 25 September (Friday and Saturday) and has three segments: “Museums & Galleries” (24 September), “Culture at Large” (25 September) and “Arts in the Open” (on both days).

The events in the “Arts in the Open” segment will happen in 10 locations throughout the city, from 7.00 p.m. to 1.00 a.m.
Below are some of the highlights in this segment. (For highlights from the other two segments, sea our press releases of 31 August and 8 September.)

On both nights, Plovdiv will be the object of creative research and intervention. The American author of horror novels Steve Z. Barowski will arrive in Bulgaria especially for the Night. On 24 and 25 September he will present his best-selling novel The Seven Hills of Plovdiv. His fans will have a chance to talk with him and get his autograph in his personal car, which will be parked outside Restaurant Fresh in Otets Paisiy St. Barowski comes to Bulgaria on invitation from the art group Club Real (Berlin/Vienna) and with the assistance of the Open Arts Foundation and Jakob Racek. On 24 September, the Irish artist Stuart McCulloch will demonstrate a special technique called Reverse Graffiti. With the help of a steam cleaner, he will draw on the enclosure of the Roman Stadium in the central Djumaya Djamiya Square. Bulgarian artist Georgi Dimitrov will bring life to a few neon signs dating back to communist times. On 25 September, the signs will be lit up for one night only. A map of existing communist-era signs and the project’s blog will also be presented.

During the Night, the public will be invited to share opinions on several important ideas for the artistic community in Plovdiv. On 24 September, the Plovdiv studio of the Bulgarian National Television, in collaboration with the student program Studio VUZ, will organize a discussion on the fate of the once legendary Plovdiv Pub. A documentary about the pub will also be screened. Kiril Kuzmanov’s Project 0 will be presented in Zlatarska St., in the Kapana quarter. Later this year, Kuzmanov intends to erect a large double mirror which will intersect one of the narrowest streets in Kapana. The project is part of the program Background: Young Artists 2010 – Project 01 of the Sariev Gallery, curated by Vladia Mihailova. The young Plovdiv artists Dimitar Shopov and Kiril Ivanov will express their views on the limited exhibition space for work by young artists in Bulgaria. On 25 September, they will show oil paintings, drawings and prints in the open area under Philip of Macedon’s monument in Djumaya Djamiya Sq.

On both nights, there will be intriguing video screening and art installations. On 24 September, a selection from the Videoholica 2010 International Video Art Festival in Varna will be shown at the Roman Odeon. On the following night, Galina Dimitrova will present the International video program “Coffee with sugar” in the same location — videos which the curators promise to be “as fresh and eye-opening as a cup of coffee and as sweet as the sugar that goes in it”. On 25 September, the installation “..page..” by Evgeniya Surbeva will turn the façade in 42 Otets Paisiy St. into a work of art with the so-called video mapping technique, which superimposes 3-D images onto buildings. On 24 September, audiences will get a chance to be active participants in the interactive audiovisual installation “Up:Down” by Albena Baeva and Petya Boyukova. With the help of a percussion instrument, viewers will be able to manipulate a video of a man and woman who keep falling down and standing up, meeting or missing each other.

The full program of the Night of Museums and Galleries is available at www.gallery-night.info. Latest news and updates will be published on the festival’s blog www.gallery-night.info/blog and our pages on Facebook and Twitter.

For more information, please contact us at:

OPEN ARTS FOUNDATION
36 Otets Paisiy St.
Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria

www.openarts.info, ++359 888 520375, ++359 885 550993, office@openarts.info