Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

September 26 - October 2, 2022
SOFIA OPEN 2022 ATP 250 will take place in Sofia from September 26 till October 2, 2022.
Venue: Arena Armeec Sofia.
Program and details at https://sofiaopen.bg/ and at https://arenaarmeecsofia.net/.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Musical by Andrey Drenikov
Chamber hall
It is performed in Bulgarian

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

September 26 - October 2, 2022
SOFIA OPEN 2022 ATP 250 will take place in Sofia from September 26 till October 2, 2022.
Venue: Arena Armeec Sofia.
Program and details at https://sofiaopen.bg/ and at https://arenaarmeecsofia.net/.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – version adapted for children
Runnig time: 01:00
Chamber hall
Performed in Bulgarian.

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Soloist/s
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
About the Event
Raina Kabaivanska and her Students.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Premiere to the new album "MAGIE"
About the Event
Featuring Quarto Quartet, Vasil Hadzhigrudev – Contrabass
Marian Marinov – Reader

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Nayden Todorov
Soloist/s
Camille Thomas
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Antonín Dvořák - Concert for violoncello and orchestra in B Minor, opus 104
Veselin Stoyanov - Symphony No.1

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Musical by Andrey Drenikov
Chamber hall
It is performed in Bulgarian

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opera satire by Lazar Nikolov based on the novel of the same name by Ivan Vazov
1:40 without intermission
Main hall
Bulgarian with english subtitles

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

With the participation of soloists and orchestra
Stage director: Yulia Krasteva
Chamber hall

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

A concert with songs from the musicals "Anastasia" and "The Sound of Music"
Chamber hall

Duration 3:00 Intermission 2
Main hall
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Vladimir Kiradjiev
Soloist/s
Ensemble
National Philharmonic Choir
About the Event
Works by Benjamin Britten, James Macmillan, Arvo Pärt, John Tavener, Zoltán Kodály.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Program
Astor Piazzolla - Tango-Ballet
Joseph Haydn - String Quartet No.5 in D Major “The Lark”, op.64
Niccolò Paganini - Grand Quartet in E dur
Sergey Rachmaninoff - String Quartet

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Emmanuel Tjeknavorian
Soloist/s
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Choir
Program
Alexander Borodin - Polovtsian Dances from the Opera Prince Igor
Loris Tjeknavorian - 3 Pieces form "Ararat Suite"
Modest Mussorgsky / Maurice Ravel - "Pictures at an exhibition"

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Musical by Alexandar Raichev
Chamber hall

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opera by Richard Strauss
Duration 2:30 Intermission 1
Main hall
The opera is performed in German with subtitles in Bulgarian and English.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opera for children by Engelbert Humperdinck
Runnig time: 01:00
Chamber hall
Performed in Bulgarian.

Opera by Giuseppe Verdi
Duration 3:15 Intermission 1
Main hall
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists. His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Fortissimo Family
Conductor
Pavel Zlatarov
Soloist/s
Bogdana Trifonova
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra

A concert with songs from the musicals "Anastasia" and "The Sound of Music"
Chamber hall

William Shakespeare. Ballet by Felix Mendelssohn
1:30 with one intermission
Main hall

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Slavil Dimitrov
Soloist/s
Ensemble
National Philharmonic Choir
About the Event
Sacred works by Anton Bruckner

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

A concert with songs from the musicals "Anastasia" and "The Sound of Music"
Chamber hall

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

35 years of creative activity
Main hall

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Musical fairy-tale by Alexander Vladigerov
Chamber hall

Music by Bizet - Shchedrin and Ludwig Minkus
Duration - CARMEN SUITE 0:50 PAQUITA 1:00 / 2:20 with one intermission
Main hall

Program
Antonín Dvořák - Terzett for Two Violins and Viola in C major, Op.74
Johannes Brahms - Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano
Leoš Janáček - Concertino for two Violins, Viola, Clarinet, Bassoon, French Horn and Piano
About the Event
Featuring:
Veneta Neynska – piano
Sabina Yordanova – bassoon
and the young talent – Diana Chausheva – violin.

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

Museum of Art from the Socialist Period
Through the image of Todor Zhivkov in the works of Bulgarian and foreign artists, the exhibition aims to shed light on a complex aspect of the art of the totalitarian epoch, namely the relationship between art and power. Some 60 works of painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts, documents and original manuscripts, visualise the interdependence of the creative intelligentsia of Bulgaria and the personality of the longest-serving Communist leader among the nations of Eastern Europe. The names of Dechko Uzunov, Ivan Nenov, Vasil Barakov, Vasil Stoilov, Vera Nedkova, Nikolay Shmirgela, Alexander Poplilov, and Svetlin Rusev stand out among the artists.
With only a few exceptions, the works in this exhibition have never been shown to the public. This fully applies to the drawings by the People’s Artists (the highest honorary title in the field of figurative arts prior to 1989), compiled in a jubilee compendium as a representative gift from the Union of Bulgarian Artists for Todor Zhivkov’s 70th birthday.
Beyond the political act of attested gratitude to the Communist Party in the person of its leader, these works can also be seen as a curious and hitherto unknown page in the history of Bulgarian art.
A small but significant section of the exhibition presents several political posters created in 2018 by former students of the Poster and Visual Communication speciality at the National Academy of Arts. In them, the image of The First and the epoch he personified are perceived in hindsight and the evaluation of new generations.

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

A concert with songs from the musicals "Anastasia" and "The Sound of Music"
Chamber hall

Ballet on music by Carl Orff
Duration - 1:45 with one intermission
Main hall
Performed in Latin

Vera Nedkova House Museum presents the exhibition LANDSCAPES. Vera Nedkova. Kaliya Kalacheva.
The exhibition will run from February 24 till July 24, 2022. Vera Nedkova House Museum is located at 2 “11 th August Str”, Sofia.
The current exhibition focuses on one of the most popular genres in painting—landscape. Works by Vera Nedkova from the National Gallery collection created in the 1960s and 1970s and paintings by Kaliya Kalacheva are on display.
Artists of different creative pursuits, styles and techniques, Vera Nedkova (1906–1996) and Kaliya Kalacheva (b. 1986) correspond in an unusual way in their search for a different perspective of communication and perception of contemporary art.
Text and image: official website of National Gallery

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Slavil Dimitrov
Soloist/s
Ensemble
National Philharmonic Choir
About the Event
Sacred works by Anton Bruckner

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

The prestigious Palace venue of the National Palace of Bulgaria, Sofia will open Torture by American artist Andres Serrano. Notorious for the artwork Piss Christ (1987), a central focus of the culture wars in the late 80’s and early 90’s, Serrano continues to foreground uncomfortable subject matter. Presented in his largest scaled photographs, akin to Renaissance masterpieces, the exhibition Torture comprises twenty works from a monumental body of work that elucidates the decay at the heart of society. Torture captures the empty spaces of interrogation rooms, immigration detention centres and concentration camps, alongside historical torture devices from prominent museum collections and replica devices used as tourist attractions.
Serrano photographed preeminent Whistle-blowers on torture and the victims, who generously offered their testimonies. For just over a month, in the industrial town of Maubourguet, southwestern France, Serrano assumed the role of the torturer. Using The Foundry as his black site, he photographed more than 40 volunteers in improvised positions with devices produced on-site by local residents. Both physical and mental techniques were utilised with the participation of his subjects, under the guidance of a retired Commando from the French Special Forces.
“With this work I visualize the full spectrum of torture…In doing this, I assumed the roles of both the artist and the torturer. As the artist, I show the audience what I see. As the torturer, I have to think like a torturer and assume control.
It’s easy to torture people when you have power over them.” Andres Serrano.
Produced in 2015 by a/political, the series was initiated the week the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture was released. As the US continued to stall the release of thousands of photographs showing U.S. military personnel torturing detainees, Andres Serrano began to visualise the reality the government was fighting to conceal.
The series has been presented as solo exhibitions at Collection Lambert, France; VOID, Northern Ireland; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston and Stills Centre of Photography, Scotland. Masters of Photography is part of the Calendar of Cultural Events of Sofia Municipality for 2022 and is implemented by the MUSIZ Foundation in partnership with the National Gallery, with the assistance of Granda Hotel Sofia, and with the financial support of Lachezar Tsotsorkov Foundation and UniCredit Bulbank.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Conductor
Sascha Goetzel
Soloist/s
Tomoki Sakata
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra
Program
Hector Berlioz - "Le carnaval romain" (Roman Carnival) Overture, Op. 9
Ferenc Liszt - Second piano concerto
Franz Schrecker - Prelude to "The Marked Ones" Drama
Claude Debussy - La Mer, Trois Esquisses Symphoniques

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Musical Georgi Kostov
Duration: 60 minutes
Chamber hall
Performed in Bulgarian

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Operas by Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini. With the special participation of Alexandrina Pendachanska in the role of Santuza.
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA Duration 1:15
GIANNI SCHICCHI Duration 1:00
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Opera by Richard Wagner – adapted for children
Chamber hall

Chamber Hall
Soloist/s
Denitsa Dimitrova
Ivan Penchev
About the Event
Works by French composers

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.

Fortissimo Family
Conductor
Viliana Valtcheva
Soloist/s
Ensemble
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra

With the participation of soloists and orchestra
Stage director: Yulia Krasteva
Chamber hall

Operas by Pietro Mascagni and Giacomo Puccini. With the special participation of Alexandrina Pendachanska in the role of Santuza.
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA Duration 1:15
GIANNI SCHICCHI Duration 1:00
It is performed in Italian, with Bulgarian and English subtitles.

Opening on Tuesday, 18 October, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Lilyana Rousseva’s name is well known to those who were participants in or followed the development of the visual arts in Bulgaria in the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s work inarguably represents a significant share of the leading directions and trends in the art of that time, both in its appearance and character. The current exhibition on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the artist’s birth is an opportunity not only to touch her world in paintings, watercolours, and drawings once again, but also to understand and experience them in a new light, more fully and overall in terms of her undisputed contribution to our artistic culture.
In the world the artist built, we will not encounter conflicts or contradictions, existential dramas or the self-centred self-disclosure of the artist’s Ego so common in the world of the contemporary artist. Nor will we find signs of forced and domineering expression emphasizing the subjective beginning. Quite the contrary – Lilyana Rousseva’s ethical attitude implies a reduction of the self and a quiet, unobtrusive reverence for the enigma of the other and “the courage of the artist to protect the liberated intimacy of the female personality” (Kiril Krastev).
Through landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, figural compositions, and nudes, an attempt has been made to encompass the entire genre and thematic variety of Lilyana Rousseva’s paintings. Included are paintings and drawings from the inventory of the National Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the art galleries in Pleven, Gabrovo, Kyustendil, Plovdiv, Ruse, Varna, Lovech, Sliven, and Smolyan, from her heirs and from private collectors. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Prof. Chavdar Popov and Ivo Milev. It has been realized through the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.
The curator is Ivo Milev, with his assistant, Dr. Tanya Staneva.

The exhibition presents 13 miniatures and 6 sculptures from the National Gallery collection.
The god of protection, compassion, tenderness and love, Krishna is central to Hindu philosophy, theology, and mythology. In literature, miniatures, and sculpture, he is represented in a variety of subjects and roles, recreating iconic moments from the narratives and beliefs about him.
The most popular are the representations of him as a baby endowed with special powers, holding a pot of butter; as a little boy dancing on the many heads of the naga, Kāliyā; as the seven-year-old Shrinathji, with his arm extended upwards, symbolising the rescue of his devotees from a disastrous storm.
Alongside the legends, his heroic battles, unfolding in a combination of different moments in time and place, have provided a wealth of material for the imagination of artists.
His love adventures with the cowherd women, known as gopis, are richly illustrated. In one sculpture, he is represented as Krishna playing the flute, while in a miniature, in a moment of play or intimacy with Radha, the most beloved of all the gopis.
The exhibition was prepared by Zlatka Dimitrova and Alexandra Yaneva, curators at the National Gallery.

XII Edition, September 28 - November 1, 2022
Venues: Bulgaria Hall, СГХГ
The poster of Piano Extravaganza, with 9 excepcional concerts! With the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Sofia Municipality. Part of the Cultural calendar of SM for 2022. In partnership with Sofia Philharmonic, Sofia Municipal Art Gallery and Sofia National Opera & Ballet.
www.piano-extravaganza.com https://www.facebook.com/PianoExtravaganza.

This exhibition and the accompanying eponymous documentary do not relate the history of automotive manufacturing in Socialist countries, nor are they retrospective in character. With their inherent sense of humour, unique visual language and obvious love for cars, Boris Missirkov and Georgi Bogdanov explore the phenomenon of sotz cars in Europe and their present owners. These cars appear in museum expositions or in private collections, or we may even see them being driven along the streets of major European cities.
Through the rich palette of images of their owners, united in their common passion for the Socialist car, past and present intertwine, complement and contrast across five distinct themes of the exhibition narrative. In the ‘Introduction’, we are greeted by Ronald Reagan’s holographic projection, accompanied by a composition of 80 model cars and a stele made of pressed tin sheets and parts from Socialist cars.
‘Slices of the Past’ are panels in the signature colours of the era with automotive paint combined with silver photo prints on transparent film accompanied by clippings from black-and-white negatives of old driving textbooks. ‘Phantasms’ is an installation of photos from the Instagram profiles of lady owners of sotz car marques in modern Russia. ‘Time Capsules’ is a series of portraits and personal stories of Bulgarian owners of Socialist cars, while ‘Epilogue’ concludes the narrative with an installation of five video portraits of the characters from the eponymous film and moving text.
Cars are an expression of the individuality of their owners, who breathe new life into them and preserve their history in our contemporary times, marked as they are by the highest technological achievements and innovative spirit. The theme of Socialist heritage is a leitmotif present throughout the work of the two artists. ‘The Cars We Drove to Capitalism’ is a form of exploration of our historical legacy of that epoch, a gauge of technological and scientific capacity. In the context of this polemics, several topics for reflection are sparked off: how valuable is our heritage; to what extent is it the reflection of a bygone reality; is there nostalgia for it?

National Archeological Museum presents the exhibition THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS. 21/4/2022 – 30/11/2022.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS presents the development of the weaponry, warfare and the technological craftsmanship of Ancient Thrace. The exposition offers an analysis of the processes and mechanisms through which main shapes of Hellenic armament were adopted, as well as the typology and technology of these artifacts not only in Thrace, but in the Classical world in general.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS consists of more than 120 artifacts – Thracian armament. Among them are composite scaled corset, swords, sheaths, helmets, parade neck-guard.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS refers to the political history of Thrace in the second half of the 1 st Millennium BC and the development of two state formations on the territory of nowadays Bulgaria and Romania - the Odrysian kingdom and the Getaen state.
THE PANOPLY OF THE THRACIAN WARRIORS is a project of St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University, National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science, in cooperation with 21 Bulgarian museums and 2 Romanian museums, including National Museum of History of Romania.
Image: National Archeological Museum at The Bulgarian Academy of Science.

In an interdisciplinary project, the artist Yona Tukuser, who works in the style of Metamodernism, interprets in her paintings the tragic consequences of hunger in the 20th century, while casting a troubled look at the present in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Yona Tukuser was born in 1986 to Bulgarian parents, in the village of Glavan in Ukraine, some 70 km from the Danube Delta. She is a descendant of a family that emigrated in 1832 from Glavan, Galabovo municipality, Stara Zagora district, Bulgaria.
For 13 years, the artist collected historical evidence of the famines in Ukraine and the Soviet Union in the periods 1921–23, 1932–33 and 1946–47, adopting an academic approach to the selection of archival sources of information.
Her personal interviews with people who survived the famine, quotations from which the exhibition’s visitors will have the opportunity to read, are particularly emotive. ‘The “Hunger” project reveals that the contemporary world has become hostage to the unpunished crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and, in particular, to the repressive, anti-peasant actions that contributed to the mass starvation of the population. Philosopher George Santayana’s aphorism that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, should sound like an alarm, the power of which will be amplified by the historical paintings that are part of the project,’ commented Yona Tukuser.

Earth and Man National Museum presents the exhibition Zlati Zlatev - 40 years dedicated to the collection of Bulgarian minerals. From 01 April to 31 December.
Earth and Man National Museum is located at 4 Cherni Vrah Blvd, Sofia.
Image and text: official website of Earth and Man National Museum.