Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
La Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, Suspended Spaces, 18 January - 25 April 2010 Varna City Art Gallery, Varna Biennial, The Big Wave, 7 August - 7 September 2010 Vienna, Dana Charkasi Gallery, An Elusive Object of Art, May - September 2011 Warsaw, Gallery Le Guern, Pravdoliub Ivanov – Half-truth, 18 November 2011 - 12 January 2012 Poland, Zachęta National Gallery of Art, The Travellers: Voyage and Migration in New Art from Central and Eastern Europe, 14 May - 21 August 2016, pp. 120-121 and 162 (illustrated, pp. 120-121 and 162) Nitra, The Nitra gallery, New Rope, 22 September - 13 November 2016
Literature
EAST by SOUTH WEST, curated by_ vienna, exh. cat., Vienna, 2011, pp. 62, 64-65 (illustrated, pp. 64-65) 'Galerien sind auf Wachstumskurs', Handelsblatt, 29 January 2012 Iara Boubnova, Luchezar Boyadjiev and Maria Vassileva, eds., Pravdoliub Ivanov: Transformation Always Takes Time and Energy, Bulgaria, 2014, pp. 16 and 17 (illustrated, p. 17) Magdalena Moskalewicz, ed., The Travellers: Voyage and Migration in New Art from Central and Eastern Europe, Tallinn, 2017, pp. 120-121 (illustrated, p. 120)
Catalogue Essay
'... the feeling of being displaced or losing possessions from one side and from another the relief of starting from zero without the heavy legacy of the past.' - Pravdoliub Ivanov
Combining the political and the personal, and the effect of politics on individuals, has been a constant theme throughout Ivanov's sculptures and installations since the early 1990's when he left Bulgaria’s second city to study in Sofia, where he now resides. Initially created for a group exhibition held at La Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, France, in 2010, Loaded presents a selection of mismatched suitcases, in various structural states. Their installation display recalls the halls of a railway station or some other place of passage. A muted violence exudes from the skeletal forms, conjuring involuntary collective displacement as well as individual fates broken by history, expulsion and exile, a powerful portrayal of the contrasts between adversity and the opportunity of freedom.
suitcases, in 20 parts smallest suitcase 28.9 x 46.4 x 14.8 cm (11 3/8 x 18 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.) largest suitcase 99.8 x 48.2 x 33 cm (39 1/4 x 18 7/8 x 12 7/8 in.) overall installation dimensions variable Executed in 2010.
