On wishes, including one of mine
Nedko Solakov is one of those artists whose work instantly captures you with its directness, charm and wit. Of course, this is true if one is familiar with and knows how to appreciate artwork that connects formal and technical ease, and the multidisciplinary, site and content-specific practice that relies on the post-conceptual art of the former Eastern European bloc, with the production ephemerality that was introduced onto the art scene as an aesthetic formula by Arte Povera. In Eastern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, the latter, in contrast to the Italian cultural scene, was primarily a question of the general standard and production difficulties that artists who were critical of the system were experiencing. Nedko Solakov has always ingeniously combined his unconventional ideas and worldview with real production possibilities, aware that neither the creative essence and artistic level, nor indeed artistic career, depended on the spectacular quality of production or the fastidious perfection of realisation. On the other hand, the Kula Gallery correctly based its strategy of presenting his type of international artists, regardless of the geolocation of their origin and cultural milieu, on the combination of artepoveresque production resources and unique location within the walls of Diocletian’s Palace. Solakov is not unknown to the Croatian audience, on the contrary, he is a frequent guest of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, where he is primarily remembered for his globally staged performance A Life (Black & White)1 in which two performers continuously paint the gallery walls, one using black paint and the other using white, following each other around the space thus constantly painting over each other’s work. From 1998 to the present day, Solakov continues to stage numerous performances of this work around the world and, with Tatiesque resoluteness and ease, its grand gesture, powerful metaphor and minimalist expressive repertoire, he successfully resists the general institutional tendency towards spectacular artistic realisations.
At the Kula Gallery, Solakov presents a series of watercolours on paper titled “Wishes” that the exhibition derives its name from, set-up in space with multiple interventions. So, strips of canvas with written wishes, inserted and lowered against the wall, in synergy with watercolours, make a visible part of the installation, while tiny textual interventions on the floor in the corners and by the walls, and on the inner false door of the gallery, make its almost invisible, but for the ludic impression of the entire display an important part. For Solakov, wishes are an entire universe, ranging from the intimate to those focused on global and universal issues, that he decided to share with the audience, clearly aware he is dealing with generally understandable content that will communicate easily with each individual. A wish generally emphasises the strength of feeling and often implies a strong intention or goal, especially for something unattainable. Wishes are mostly derived from frustration, which is often associated with the fact that they are, as a rule, rarely fulfilled. The maxim of St Teresa of Avila, loosely translated as: “There are more tears shed over answered prayers, than over unanswered prayers.” could be applied to them by simply substituting the word prayer with the word wish. Solakov approaches the sombre domain of wishes in a relaxed, almost childlike, one could even say naïve manner as he summarily creates the symbolic space filled with intense and bright colours. Next to them, handwritten in small print is a wish or its status. We have already discussed the content of these wishes, while in terms of their status and different states, Solakov assigns them attributes of living entities that develop, merge or wistfully fail in an entirely human way, in the bittersweet reality to which they refer. For those interested in the visual aspect of the series, suffice it to say that Solakov is an exceptional and sensitive colourist who uses colour as one of the keys to understanding the general attitude.
Unlike the formally framed watercolours, the narrow strips with written wishes, even though they appear to be executed on the spot, have also been produced in the artist’s studio in Sofia and then spontaneously inserted into the existing joints of the stone wall built almost two thousand years ago. The process itself is reminiscent of the ritual of inserting slips of paper with wishes into the crevices of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. It is estimated that Jewish pilgrims leave over a million wishes in the course of one year, which are ritually extracted and then burned, creating space for the incessant onslaught of wishes. Solakov’s wishes thematically range from the wish for a penis enlargement and the fate of his works, through wishing for the return of aliens and for the war to end, to the wish to stop wishing. The wishes are spontaneously handwritten in different colours, so they create a kind of visual dynamism on the wall. Despite the objective seriousness of the wishes, it is not easy to resist the feeling of benevolent irony that the artist uses to create, through them as the message medium, an impression of his own self (or a wishful projection of self) to the world and reality, and finally the mechanism of wishing in general. The third segment of the display is made up of small visual interventions on the floor in the corners of the gallery, including two weary eyes on the door, thus granting them “eyesight”, leading from the gallery to the makeshift storage space. Throughout history, the motif of the eye has symbolised the positive power of healing, providence and protection from evil, while in today’s civilisation it is rapidly becoming a sign of total surveillance. Solakov’s barely visible intervention on the door deep in the dark corridor certainly adds a novel “weary” look to the motif, and although it can be interpreted ambivalently, it reveals a slight weariness with daily life. Still, and above all, Solakov’s mastery of playing with content and meanings even when dealing with weariness obviously has the function of activating the observer’s consciousness. From the aspect of the artist’s conception of the installation itself, one gets the impression that he is driven by the need for omnipresence in the exhibition space. So, he wrote small croquis on the floor in the corners of the space. There is one with the motif of sperm as if trying to fertilise the exhibition space and leave in it the artist’s seed forever: Solakov has come to stay forever. Following, in turn, are the motifs of a snail and a modest eclipse, which seem to comment on how things usually turn out. The most charming is certainly the croquis of restless Diocletian having a bad dream, as human as the rest of us. The demystification of the imperial deity Diocletian in his magnificent home and monument is a typical dedication to the context of the work of, essentially, an anarchoid human spirit.
After viewing Solakov’s exhibition, I could not help but remember the installation of the Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi2 who showcased his work at the Kula Gallery in 2016. The two artists are, in my view, similar in their sense of humour that facilitates their critical perception of reality, formal ease and performative seriousness, who are indeed generationally and geographically close, and I dare say, also in terms of their worldviews shaped by growing up in oppressive social systems. Notwithstanding these similarities, according to Solakov their approach to the exhibition space differs. While he doesn’t consider the gallery space before he enters it, Perjovschi prepares his stories in advance in his famous booknotes and then decides which story to place where in the gallery. Perhaps they do not see it this way, but it is undeniable that the Kula Gallery has managed to bring another witty, thoughtful and globally relevant artist to Split. My wish is to have more galleries like Kula in Croatia.
Branko Franceschi
1 A Life (Black & White), limited edition of 5 and 1AP. In the collections of: Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Hauser & Wirth Sammlung, Museum Moderne Kunst Frankfurt and Tate Modern, London.
2 According to the artfacts.net, Nedko Solakov and Dan Perjovschi have so far staged two two-person shows in New York and Vienna, and have both participated in 70 group exhibitions.
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, Mudam Luxembourg, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, and MAXXI, Rome. 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.
