The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

Chamber hall

Giuseppe Verdi - Premiere
Main Hall
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Musical by Alexandar Raichev
Duration 1:00
Chamber hall
Performed in Bulgarian.

The entrance is with invitations, available at the Bulgaria Hall Box Office.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

In front of the Presidency

The ceremonial change of the guard in front of the Presidency marks the national and public holidays in Bulgaria. The officialchange of the guard takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at 12:00 o’clock.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Opera by Georges Bizet
Duration 3:00 Intermission 1
Main Hall
It is performed in French, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Ekaterine Buachidze
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
About this event
Arias and Excerpts from Operas by GIOACHINO ROSSINI, WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, JULES MASSENET, CHARLES GOUNOD AND GEORGES BIZET

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Children's performance to the music of Camille Saint-Saëns
Duration 1:00
Chamber hall

Monodrama by Lyubomir Denev
Libretto Gergan Tsenov
Conductor Velislava Skrilyova
Stage director Vera Nemirova
Set designer Yulian Tabakov

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Musical fairy tale by Jules Levy /Premiere/
Chamber hall

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Chamber hall

Chamber Hall
Solоist/s
Vesela Trichkova
Vencislava Asenova
Lubomir Genchev
Ensemble
Flautissimo Quartet

Chamber Concert
OPERA CLUB Georgi Sava Rakovski Street 113

Musical
Duration 1:45 without intermission
Chamber hall

Monodrama by Lyubomir Denev
Libretto Gergan Tsenov
Conductor Velislava Skrilyova
Stage director Vera Nemirova
Set designer Yulian Tabakov

Jessica Pratt Opera Gala Concert
Main Hall

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Solоist/s
Nadejda Tzanova
Ensemble
Sofia Quartet
Program
Franz Schubert – String Quartet No.9 in G minor, (D 173)
Dmitri Shostakovich – Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57

An opera by Blagovesta Konstantinova based on the short novel by Emilian Stanev
Duration 1:10
Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor
Ernest Hoetzl
Solоist/s
Stefan Aprodu
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Overture from Opera “Don Giovanni”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.5, K.219
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem (K.626)

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Ilyun Bürkev
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
George Gershwin – “Rhapsody in blue”

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vivi Vassileva
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Danny Elfman – Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra
Nikolay Rimsky- Korsakov – Symphonic suite „Scheherazade”, opus 35

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Television show for Sofia Opera and Ballet with author and presenter Miglena Stoycheva

Ballet to music by Vaughn Williams, Edward Elgar, Henry Purcell, Hubert Perry, Georg Frideric Händel - Premiere
Main Hall

Dohodno Zdanie (Profitable building), Rousse, Bulgaria
Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vivi Vassileva
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Danny Elfman – Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra
Nikolay Rimsky- Korsakov – Symphonic suite „Scheherazade”, opus 35

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The National Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria) is opening its first exhibition dedicated to the legacy of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, marking the 90th anniversary of the artists’ birth. The museum’s first acquisition of Christo’s iconic work Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) from 1986, along other original collages, will be officially presented to the public. Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will be on view from November 4th, 2025, to March 22nd, 2026.
The realization of this monumental project spanned a total of 24 years, during which Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed eight other projects, also featured in the exhibition. These include The Gates, Central Park, New York City (1979–2005); The Umbrellas, Japan–USA (1984–91); The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris (1975–85); Surrounded Islands, Biscayne Bay, Greater Miami, Florida (1980–83); Wrapped Walk Ways, Jacob Loose Memorial Park, Kansas City, Missouri (1977–78); Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California (1972–76); Ocean Front, Newport, Rhode Island (1974); The Wall – Wrapped Roman Wall, Via Veneto and Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy (1973–74); and Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado (1970–72).
The archival video materials, photographs, and documents from the wrapping of the Reichstag—an enduring symbol of democracy—provide a unique historical insight into the realization of this remarkable project.
With this exhibition, the National Gallery also commemorates three major anniversaries of the artists’ visionary projects celebrated in 2025: 20 years since The Gates in New York City, 30 years since Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin and 40 years since The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris.
These milestones represent not only significant moments in the artistic journey of Christo and Jeanne-Claude but also landmark events that transformed the cultural history of Europe. « Christo and Jeanne-Claude always referred to their projects as a scream for freedom. Coming from communist Bulgaria Christo would not make any concessions at any cost to go back on that freedom. More than in any other project that is relevant in the Wrapped Reichstag», reminds Vladimir Yavachev, nephew and director of projects of the artist couple. « The mission of the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation is to promote their vision, it is essential that their legacy finds its place also in Sofia, as it does in the world’s major capitals that are paying tribute to them in this year marking the 90th anniversary of their birth. I thank the National Gallery in Sofia for making this acquisition and exhibition possible, and we hope that it will be the first of many more in Sofia and Bulgaria. »
The exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95, curated by Gergana Mihova (National Gallery), is a collaboration between the National Gallery and the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation. The opening of the exhibition Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971-95 will take place on November 4th at 6PM and the Institut français de Bulgarie, Goethe Institut Bulgaria, SOF Connect and BTA / Bulgarian News Agency are partners of the show.
About Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat were born on 13 June, 1935 respectively in Gabrovo (Bulgaria) and Casablanca (Morocco). Christo studied under the Communist regime at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, from 1952 to 1956, when he fled Bulgaria. His escape to the West took him through Prague and Vienna before relocating to Geneva. In 1958 he finally moved to Paris, where he met Jeanne-Claude, who became his wife and his life partner in the creation of large-scale environmental artworks. Jeanne-Claude passed away on 18 November, 2009. Christo died on 31 May, 2020 in New York City, where he lived for 56 years.
From early wrapped objects to monumental outdoor projects, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Some of their work included Wrapped Coast near Sydney (1968–69), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1970–72), Running Fence in California (1972–76), Surrounded Islands in Miami (1980–83), The Pont Neuf Wrapped in Paris (1975–85), The Umbrellas in Japan and California (1984–91), Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin (1972–95), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (1979–2005), The Floating Piers at Italy’s Lake Iseo (2014–16), The London Mastaba in London (2016–18), and L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped in Paris (1961–2021).

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet to music by Vaughn Williams, Edward Elgar, Henry Purcell, Hubert Perry, Georg Frideric Händel - Premiere
Main Hall

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet to music by Vaughn Williams, Edward Elgar, Henry Purcell, Hubert Perry, Georg Frideric Händel - Premiere
Main Hall

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Ballet to music by Vaughn Williams, Edward Elgar, Henry Purcell, Hubert Perry, Georg Frideric Händel - Premiere
Main Hall

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor
Mikhail Shekhtman
Solоist/s
Mikhail Pletnev
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Ludwig van Beethoven – Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.1 in C major, Op.15
Franz Schubert – Symphony No. 2 in B-flat Major, D 125

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Opera by Richard Strauss
Duration - 1:50
Main Hall
Preformed in german, with bulgarian and english subtitles

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Solоist/s
Dimitris Kitsos
Vyara Mincheva
Anton Velichkov
Jung Eun Lee
Ina Ivanova
Kosara Alexandrova
Berk Terzioglu
Maria Perperieva
Iva Kirova
Kiril-Yosif Benvenisti
Dorothy Dankina
Miriam Margalit Petrova
Stoyan Barzakov
Maria Kiryakova
Ensemble
Classic Art

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Curators: Martina Yordanova and Vasil Vladimirov
The National Gallery presents the solo exhibition by Driant Zeneli ‘If I Don’t Know What Will Happen Tomorrow, It Could Be Wonderful’, a video installation that approaches uncertainty not as a lack or failure, but as an active position and a space for imagination.
The exhibition brings together four video works produced between 2011 and 2023, each originating from a different trilogy in the artist’s practice. Rather than forming a retrospective, the selection traces a consistent artistic method in which attempts are undertaken with full awareness of their likely failure. Preparation, anticipation and collective projection occupy more space than resolution, while meaning emerges through sustained engagement with limits.
Zeneli’s films unfold within industrial ruins, modernist architecture and sites marked by interrupted utopias and historical weight. Presented in Hall 19 of the National Gallery – Kvadrat 500, defined by monumental stone clad architecture and an excavated Roman tomb from the fourth century, the exhibition enters into an active dialogue with the space, considering history not as a completed past, but as an ongoing condition.
Throughout the exhibition, flight appears not as a solution, but as a gesture, a temporary suspension of certainty and a way of thinking from within gravity rather than against it.
About Driant Zeneli:
Driant Zeneli (b. 1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives and works between Turin and Tirana. He represented Albania at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2011 as part of the group exhibition of the 54th International Art Exhibition and in 2019 with a solo presentation at the 58th edition.
His work has been presented at major international institutions and biennials, including: MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Sharjah Biennial; Bienal de La Habana; MAXXI, Rome; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MuCEM, Marseille; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, among others. Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Opera by Gaetano Donizetti
Duration - 2:30 with one intermission
Main Hall
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Chamber hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Art 36 Gallery was the first private gallery in Sofia, registered on 12 July 1990. Its gallerist, Kamelia Chekarlieva-Mincheva (15.03.1936–01.05.2020), wholeheartedly supported by her husband Ilarion, managed it with infinite love for art and artists until her death. Founded in a time of turbulent political changes, it actively participated both in the early events on the art market in Bulgaria, and in the process of building a freely organised art scene.
Initially located at 159 Rakovski Street, the gallery was launched with an exhibition by Keazim Issinov. It then moved to a basement space at 40 Slavyanska Street and, on 26 October 1990, it officially opened its doors with an exhibition by Dimitar Kazakov – Neron.
Despite its modest size—a limited exhibition area and a large back garden—the salon had a significant influence on the development of Bulgarian art over three decades. The first artists to be represented by the gallery included: Genko Genkov, Ivan Kirkov, Georg Baev, Georgi Bozhilov – Slona, Svetlin Rusev, Lyuben Zidarov, Magda Abazova, and Tsanko Panov.
The place also established itself as an attractive stage for young talents. In the 1990s, it was there that Kolyo Karamfilov, Rumen Zhekov, Krasimir Dobrev, and many others, held their first exhibitions in the capital.
Some 150 names of artists who had shown their works there were immortalised on the walls of either side of theentrance. At some point, Kamelia discontinued marking them, as she lost contact with the calligrapher who used to inscribe them. According to her, there were at least 50 more. ‘Everyone has their own ladder and climbs it—up or down. I don’t keep count of the exhibitions or the number of artists,’ Kamelia said in an interview.
The camera lens of Ani Petrova—a true friend of the gallery and the artists—has captured many of those hundreds of memorable moments from the capital’s colourful cultural life right there, at Kamelia’s Art 36 Gallery.
The exhibition includes selected portraits of Kamelia painted by some of her favourite artists and friends: Genko Genkov, Stanimir Zhelev, Atanas Atanasov, Galab Galabov and Donka Pavlova, as well as recollections of artists such as Lyuben Genov, Ivan Milev and Stefan Lyutakov.
The history of the first private galleries in the closing decade of the 20th century is still unwritten and poorly researched.
The goal of this exhibition is to draw attention to the people and events that participated in the artistic processes and shaped the social life of contemporary art in Bulgaria.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The Palace The exhibition is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Bulgarian artist Elena Karamihaylova – an occasion to return once more to her work, which stands among the earliest and most vivid examples of Bulgarian art’s place on the European artistic scene. Following the anniversary exhibition at the Union of Bulgarian Artists in 2005, this project realises a large-scale retrospective bringing together works drawn primarily from the collections of state galleries.
Elena Karamihaylova is among the first academically trained women artists in Bulgaria. Having passed through the studios of distinguished painters in Vienna and Munich, she used the achievements of Impressionism to hone her brushwork. Her works are an example of liberation from academicism and a move towards a light and luminous style of painting. From today’s vantage point, her significant place in Bulgarian visual culture can only be reinforced. The marking of the anniversary has been initiated by art historians Ramona Dimova and Plamen Petrov, whose research work underlies the exhibitions in Kazanlak and Shumen in 2025.
Partners: Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Union of Bulgarian Artists, Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries of Varna, Kardzhali, Montana, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven and Haskovo, ENAKOR Auction House, the Ivan Barnev-Bubi collection, and Dzhurkovi Gallery.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

The exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of artist Nikolay Panayotov, outlines the trajectory of a long journey, where reality has always been merely a starting point. This exhibition brings together the artist’s key themes, images and attitudes that define his visual world: freedom of imagination, rejection of the canon, an ironic perspective on history, and the eternal feeling of flight. The title, ‘Lunatically’, was borrowed from that of a painting by the artist and its eponymous text—a hybrid of an absurd story, a personal manifesto, and a myth. This tale may be read as a key to understanding Panayotov’s entire oeuvre.
The exhibition does not aim for retrospective exhaustiveness but rather invites the viewer to enter a space where the rational gives way to the intuitive, and the image functions as a conveyor of meaning beyond the literal. ‘Kissing Machine’, a 10-metre painting produced specifically for this exhibition is a particular counterpoint to the works from the early 1990s on display in one of the rooms.
The style of the artist is distinguished by a particular compositional structure, with a more monumental than easel-like rendition. Regardless of the format, and regardless of content and thematic concept, each of his paintings bears the features of a carcass carrying the elements of his authorial inventions, in a dynamic, open dialogue with the narrative of other paintings by the artist. The individual scenes and details possess a relative autonomy subordinated, however, to a frieze-like visual narrative.
In Panayotov’s works, figures, animals and objects coexist in combinations that seem simultaneously absurd and somehow inevitably closely knit. This art consistently avoids didactics, abandons direct commentary, and favours the language of metaphor, irony, absurdity and the grotesque.
The exhibition includes the latest works produced in Villeroy & Boch Bulgaria in Sevlievo in the summer of 2025. Through a pictorial intervention on the already existing shape of the sanitary ceramics, the artist builds a dialogue between the industrial and the gestural, between the finished volume and the free drawing.
Curators: Boryana Valchanova and Vessela Christova-Radoeva.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.

Mirena Zlateva’s exhibition, ‘Shift in Focus’, continues the tradition of presenting contemporary artists in the cosy apartment of the Vera Nedkova House Museum. Launched in 2019, the programme titled ‘In the Home of Vera Nedkova’ brings together, and acquaints the public with artists inspired by the atmosphere of the place and by Vera Nedkova’s oeuvre.
Mirena Zlateva presents a selected collection of bijoux and carvings, where the boundary between sculpture and jewellery gradually blurs and melts away. In her works, the artist explores, analyses and makes parts and volumes cohere through the prism of her personal lens and sensitivity. And, as she said: ‘I am inspired by the material itself. I love shifting the focal plane.’
In the exhibition, we discover more of a narrative about the impact of construction and form fashioned as an original sculpture on the human body. Displayed in this way, the works are not simply bijoux or visual accents, but sculptural forms, deliberately and outstandingly voluminous (rings, necklaces, brooches), which, from a functional point of view, arouse a sense of discomfort, but at the same time, a desire to feel and touch them.
The exhibited items include jewellery from the ‘Arrangement’ series, Ag925 (2023) and the latest collection, ‘White’, Ag925 (2025–26), as well as the ‘Grass’ sculpture (2014), and the ‘Home’ installation (2025–26).
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency
Diana Draganova-Stier, exhibition curator

Kvadrat 500
Opening on 19 June (Thursday), from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM With the special participation of NASHTA.VERSIA – an audiovisual means of transport, probing the infinity of perceptions in risky impro acceleration
Having launched in 2020, the long-term project of the National Gallery ‘The Wall’ aims to present contemporary masters of mural painting and graffiti artists. On a specially designated wall in the atrium of Kvadrat 500 (with impressive dimensions of 2.40 x 27 m), the artists create monumental works in harmony with sculptural pieces by Alexander Dyakov, Pavel Koychev, Galin Malakchiev, and others, which are part of the representative museum exhibition.
Ivo Iliev Yeto is well known for a number of emblematic large-scale murals at key locations in Sofia. Through them, he creates stories in which nature, man and symbols interact in surreal situations, carrying multi-layered meaning and interpretation. With a pronounced interest in comics and graffiti since his childhood, Yeto still maintains his preference for magical subjects. His works have been realised far beyond the borders of the country – in Austria, Germany, Greece, France, etc.
In the space opposite the atrium, selection of small-format landscape compositions will also be displayed (June–August 2025), in which reality, magic and dream bring a special sense of timelessness. They are part of a larger series entitled ‘No Snooze Mornings’, in which the artist presents his searches and reflections on the fleeting moment between the end of dreaming and the moment of awakening – when human consciousness experiences a special kind of frustration at the inability to determine what is real and what is not.
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency.
Martin Kostashki, curator of the exhibition

The National Gallery presents one of the most iconic figures in the history of Bulgarian art – Zahari Zograph. This first immersive exhibition introduces a new way of experiencing the masterpieces of the the museum’s collection. Harnessing new technologies, the 20-minute project, created by Senzor Studio, brings his religious and secular masterpieces to life, revealing essential elements of his creative process.
The initiative promotes Bulgarian Revival аrt, a period characterized by economic, social, and cultural growth, closely tied to the pursuit of ecclesiastical and national independence. The period traces its origins to the mid-18th century, when Paisius of Hilendar wrote Istoriya Slavyanobulgarskaya (History of the Slavs and Bulgarians) in 1762—which profoundly shaped the spiritual awakening of the population and contributed significantly to the development of national consciousness…
The exhibition features a selection of icons, drawings, copies, letters, documents, and secular portraits from the artist’s early period. It also showcases a substantive collection of murals, ranging from his earliest works—created in 1838 for the Chapel of St John the Baptist at the Church of the Holy Virgin—Annunciation in Asenovgrad—to what is considered as his “final masterpiece,” the murals adorning the narthex of the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, completed between 1851 and 1852.
Zahari Zograph emerged as a defining figure of Bulgarian Revival art. His relentlessly inquisitive artistic spirit was ahead of its era, and his extensive body of work reflects the vitality of the approaching modern age, the artistry of traditional imagery, the strength of line, and the emotive power of color.
The project is realised with the financial support of the National Culture Fund of Bulgaria under the Creation programme 2024.
Media partners: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency and SOF Connect.

The exhibition Some Time Before the End brings together works by Adelina Popnedeleva, Boris Missirkov / Georgi Bogdanov, Krassimir Terziev, Luchezar Boyadjiev, and Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova from the collection of Sofia City Art Gallery, and places them in dialogue with a new short story by Joanna Elmy, written especially for the project. The title is borrowed from the writer’s text, which enters into conversation with the artworks and offers a new framework for experiencing them. Inspired by the works, the story is their immediate literary echo.
The exhibition stems from the desire to set aside the “code” we sometimes use when speaking about contemporary art.
Some Time Before the End also returns to an old dilemma: how much explanation is needed, and when does it start to get in the way. That is why literature is present as an equal partner in the conversation: another way to approach the works without fixing them in a single interpretation.
The works in the exhibition do not insist on being "decoded"—they speak for themselves. Joanna Elmy’s story likewise does not explain or attach “labels”; instead, it unlocks associations and opens up possibilities for reading.
The project also fits within Sofia City Art Gallery’s broader programme for 2026–2027, which includes two exhibition projects addressing the theme of the apocalypse and the personal sense of the end of the world in the context of crises and wars. The first is the present exhibition, which connects a literary text with a selection from the gallery’s Contemporary Art Collection; the second is The World Ends Every Day by curator Galina Dimitrova-Dimova, which invites international artists to collaborate with Bulgarian colleagues and to explore the theme through the lens of poetic political art.
Vaska Emanouilova Gallery (a branch of Sofia City Art Gallery), 15 Yanko Sakuzov Blvd., Sofia, 02/ 944 11 75
Press contact: Victoria Gyuleva, Curator, victoriagyuleva@gmail.com, +359877874104

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Lili Ivanova
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra