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Thursday 14 May 2026
11 May 2026 - 17 May 2026
April 2026
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
01.05.2026
National and Official Holidays
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
06.05.2026
National and Official Holidays
Religious Holidays
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
06.05.2026
OFFICIAL CHANGE OF THE GUARD IN FRONT OF THE PRESIDENCY
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.
Festivals
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
07.05.2026
Sergei Nakariakov, Maria Meerovitch & Friends
Conductor
Felipe Tristan
Solоist/s
Sergei Nakariakov
Maria Meerovitch
Barnabás Kelemen
Boris Andrianov
Jing Zhao
David Taylor
Roman Spitzer
Kevin Zhu
Alex Sipiagin
Misha Tsiganov
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Ludwig van Beethoven – Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra in C major, Op.56
Jean-Baptiste Arban – Variations on a theme from the Opera “Norma” by Bellini, Op.187
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – “Pezzo capriccioso“ for Cello and Orchestra
Franz Schubert – “Der Doppelgänger” (arr. for bass-trombone by David Taylor)
Max Bruch – Romance for Viola and Orchestra, Op.85
Wayne Shorter – Infant Eyes
Cole Porter – “Just one of those things”
About this event
Works by LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, JEAN-BAPTISTE ARBAN, PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, FRANZ SCHUBERT, MAX BRUCH, GEORGES BUZET/FRANZ WAXMAN, WAYNE SHORTER, COLE PORTER
Felipe Tristan
Solоist/s
Sergei Nakariakov
Maria Meerovitch
Barnabás Kelemen
Boris Andrianov
Jing Zhao
David Taylor
Roman Spitzer
Kevin Zhu
Alex Sipiagin
Misha Tsiganov
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Ludwig van Beethoven – Concerto for Violin, Violoncello, Piano and Orchestra in C major, Op.56
Jean-Baptiste Arban – Variations on a theme from the Opera “Norma” by Bellini, Op.187
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – “Pezzo capriccioso“ for Cello and Orchestra
Franz Schubert – “Der Doppelgänger” (arr. for bass-trombone by David Taylor)
Max Bruch – Romance for Viola and Orchestra, Op.85
Wayne Shorter – Infant Eyes
Cole Porter – “Just one of those things”
About this event
Works by LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, JEAN-BAPTISTE ARBAN, PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, FRANZ SCHUBERT, MAX BRUCH, GEORGES BUZET/FRANZ WAXMAN, WAYNE SHORTER, COLE PORTER
Festivals
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
08.05.2026
Frequenza Festival – “Garland of sonnets”
Solоist/s
Sergei Nakariakov
Maria Meerovitch
Barnabás Kelemen
Jing Zhao
Saar Berger
David Taylor
Kevin Zhu
Roman Spitzer
Boris Andrianov
Program
Youli Galperine – Three Sonnets for Trumpet and Piano
Bohuslav Martinů – Duo for violin and violoncello No.1, H.157
Yitzhak Yedid – Purification Prayer
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – “Mache Dich, Mein Herze, Rein”
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – “Il Pastor, Fido”
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – Fugue
Pavel Chesnokov – “The Angel Cried”
Johannes Brahms- Horn trio, Op.40
Sergei Nakariakov
Maria Meerovitch
Barnabás Kelemen
Jing Zhao
Saar Berger
David Taylor
Kevin Zhu
Roman Spitzer
Boris Andrianov
Program
Youli Galperine – Three Sonnets for Trumpet and Piano
Bohuslav Martinů – Duo for violin and violoncello No.1, H.157
Yitzhak Yedid – Purification Prayer
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – “Mache Dich, Mein Herze, Rein”
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – “Il Pastor, Fido”
Johann Sebastian Bach/Daniel Schnyder – Fugue
Pavel Chesnokov – “The Angel Cried”
Johannes Brahms- Horn trio, Op.40
Festivals
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
09.05.2026
Frequenza Festival – “Rebels”
Solоist/s
Jing Zhao
Maria Meerovitch
Roman Spitzer
Saar Berger
Kevin Zhu
David Taylor
Barnabás Kelemen
Boris Andrianov
Alex Sipiagin
Sergei Nakariakov
Roland Szentpáli
Program
Alfred Schnittke – Suite in the Old Style
Witold Lutosławski – Five pieces for Viola and Violoncello
Tonia Ko – “Glass Echoes”
Igor Stravinsky – “Italian Suite” for Violin and Orchestra on a Music from Ballet “Pulcinella”
Ludwig van Beethoven – String Trio No.3, Op.9
Daniel Schnyder – Brass Trio
About this event
Also in the program:
“The New Lusophone” Improvisation
Dave Taylor plays Dave Taylor (bass-trombone)
Jing Zhao
Maria Meerovitch
Roman Spitzer
Saar Berger
Kevin Zhu
David Taylor
Barnabás Kelemen
Boris Andrianov
Alex Sipiagin
Sergei Nakariakov
Roland Szentpáli
Program
Alfred Schnittke – Suite in the Old Style
Witold Lutosławski – Five pieces for Viola and Violoncello
Tonia Ko – “Glass Echoes”
Igor Stravinsky – “Italian Suite” for Violin and Orchestra on a Music from Ballet “Pulcinella”
Ludwig van Beethoven – String Trio No.3, Op.9
Daniel Schnyder – Brass Trio
About this event
Also in the program:
“The New Lusophone” Improvisation
Dave Taylor plays Dave Taylor (bass-trombone)
Festivals
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
04.03.2026 - 10.05.2026
Some Time Before the End
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
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
Exhibitions
10.05.2026
Frequenza Festival – “In Pursuit of Harmony”
Solоist/s
Kevin Zhu
Jing Zhao
Barnabás Kelemen
Roman Spitzer
Boris Andrianov
Maria Meerovitch
Sergei Nakariakov
Alex Sipiagin
Misha Tsiganov
Saar Berger
David Taylor
Roland Szentpáli
Matthew Gee
Program
Reinhold Glière – Eight pieces for Violin and Violoncello
Antonín Dvořák – Piano Quintet No.2
Kevin Zhu
Jing Zhao
Barnabás Kelemen
Roman Spitzer
Boris Andrianov
Maria Meerovitch
Sergei Nakariakov
Alex Sipiagin
Misha Tsiganov
Saar Berger
David Taylor
Roland Szentpáli
Matthew Gee
Program
Reinhold Glière – Eight pieces for Violin and Violoncello
Antonín Dvořák – Piano Quintet No.2
Festivals
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
12.05.2026
ZORBA THE GREEK
Ballet by Mikis Theodorakis
Duration 2:00 with 1 intermission
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Duration 2:00 with 1 intermission
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
14.05.2026
Vadim Repin & Nayden Todorov
Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vadim Repin
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Richard Wagner – Overture from Opera “The Master-Singers of Nuremberg”
Sergei Prokofiev – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.1 in D major, Op.19
Franz Liszt – Symphonic Poem: Les Préludes
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vadim Repin
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Richard Wagner – Overture from Opera “The Master-Singers of Nuremberg”
Sergei Prokofiev – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.1 in D major, Op.19
Franz Liszt – Symphonic Poem: Les Préludes
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
16.05.2026
FROM THE FRONT ROW - BNT 2
Television show for Sofia Opera and Ballet with author and presenter Miglena Stoycheva
BNT 2 - program "From the front row"
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
BNT 2 - program "From the front row"
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Music and Dance Events
16.05.2026
THE QUEEN OF OPERA
A Chamber Concert featuring Maria Guleghina
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
17.05.2026
Viennese stories with the Magic Quartet
Solоist/s
Vencislava Asenova
Kamen Asenov
Ensemble
The Philharmonic Wind Quintet
Vencislava Asenova
Kamen Asenov
Ensemble
The Philharmonic Wind Quintet
Music and Dance Events
17.05.2026
LA CENERENTOLA
Opera by Gioachino Rossini
Duration 2:45 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in italian, with bulgarian and english subtitles.
Duration 2:45 Intermission 1
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in italian, with bulgarian and english subtitles.
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
21.05.2026
Gidon Kremer & Nayden Todorov
Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Gidon Kremer
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Giya Kancheli – „Styx” for viola, choir and orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No.9 in E-flat major, Op.70
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Gidon Kremer
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Giya Kancheli – „Styx” for viola, choir and orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No.9 in E-flat major, Op.70
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
24.05.2026
National and Official Holidays
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
24.05.2026
OFFICIAL CHANGE OF THE GUARD IN FRONT OF THE PRESIDENCY
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.
Festivals
24.05.2026
Joint concert with Raina Kabaivanska School/NBU
Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vittoria Yeo
Aleksandrina Mihaylova
Baia Saganelidze
Arsen Soghomonyan
Giuseppe Infantino
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
About this event
Arias and Duets from Operas by GIUSEPPE VERDI, GIACOMO PUCCINI, FRANCESCO CILEA AND PIETRO MASCAGNI
Nayden Todorov
Solоist/s
Vittoria Yeo
Aleksandrina Mihaylova
Baia Saganelidze
Arsen Soghomonyan
Giuseppe Infantino
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
About this event
Arias and Duets from Operas by GIUSEPPE VERDI, GIACOMO PUCCINI, FRANCESCO CILEA AND PIETRO MASCAGNI
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.05.2026
DAS RHEINGOLD
Opera by Richard Wagner / Der Ring des Nibelungen
Duration: 2:35 No intermission
Main Hall 1000
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Duration: 2:35 No intermission
Main Hall 1000
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
27.05.2026
DIE WALKÜRE
Opera by Richard Wagner / Der Ring des Nibelungen
Duration 5:00 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Duration 5:00 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
28.05.2026
Tine Thing Helseth & Viliana Valtcheva
Conductor
Viliana Valtcheva
Solоist/s
Tine Thing Helseth
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Bedřich Smetana – Symphonic Poem “Vltava” from Cycle “Má vlast”
Alexander Arutiunian – Trumpet Concerto
Pancho Vladigerov – Jewish poem
Alexander Borodin – Polovtsian Dances
Viliana Valtcheva
Solоist/s
Tine Thing Helseth
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Bedřich Smetana – Symphonic Poem “Vltava” from Cycle “Má vlast”
Alexander Arutiunian – Trumpet Concerto
Pancho Vladigerov – Jewish poem
Alexander Borodin – Polovtsian Dances
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
30.05.2026
Sun in Notes: Saturday Matinee with the Children’s Philharmonic Choir
Conductor
Milena Yatsino
Solоist/s
Svetlin Hristov
Petra Atanasova
Ensemble
Children’s Philharmonic Choir
Milena Yatsino
Solоist/s
Svetlin Hristov
Petra Atanasova
Ensemble
Children’s Philharmonic Choir
Music and Dance Events
26.02.2026 - 31.05.2026
ELENA KARAMIHAYLOVA (1875–1961) …AND I PAINTED ON ALONE
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.
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.
Exhibitions
05.03.2026 - 31.05.2026
LUNATICALLY - NICOLAI PANAYOTOV
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.
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.
Exhibitions
21.01.2026 - 12.06.2026
Mirena Zlateva SHIFT IN FOCUS
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
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
Exhibitions
19.06.2025 - 31.05.2026
The Wall Vol. 6 – Ivo Iliev | YETO ALCHEMY OF THE MOMENT
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
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
Exhibitions
10.12.2025 - 30.01.2027
Zahari Zograph Immersive 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 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.
Exhibitions
31.05.2026
GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
Opera by Richard Wagner / Der Ring des Nibelungen
Duration 6:00 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Duration 6:00 Intermission 2
Main Hall
Children under 6 years of age are not allowed at performances for adults.
Performed in German, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.
Music and Dance Events