Shape-Shifters

 Jaishri Abichandani, Spock As Me, digital photograph, 2011

Lora Azza and Dimitri Dimov, Rubik's Truth, Rubiks Cube, acrylic, table, 2014

Shape-Shifters

Curated by Raul Zamudio

Opening reception November 24

November 24-December 10, 2015

Bulart Gallery

Varna, Bulgaria

Artists:

Jashri Abichandani/US/India

Lora Azza/France/Bulgaria

Andriy Bazyuta/Ukraine

Robert Baramov/Bulgaria

Dimitri Dimov/France/Bulgaria

Adolfo Doring/US/Mexico

Olga Georgieva/Austria/Bulgaria

Ivaylo Hristov/Bulgaria

Nestor Kovachev /Austria/Bulgaria

Vladimir Ivanov/Bulgaria

Emma McCagg/US

Quintin Rivera Toro/Spain/Puerto Rico

Romulo Sans/US/Spain

Paolo Vivian/Italy

Shape-Shifters explores the protean nature of identity in numerous contexts as well as the way some artworks are formally unstable in being hybrids of painting and sculpture or photography and performance, for example. The exhibition explores this via a diverse group of fourteen artists that work in various media including painting, work-on-paper, photography, sculpture, video, installation, sound art, and performance.

Apart from the individual works that uniquely address the exhibition thematic, its curatorial structure shape- shifts too, for it initially entails the presentation of seven foreign artists and one Bulgarian artist. The first  Bulgarian artist will then select another Bulgarian artist to replace a foreign artist. The substitution of a foreign artist with Bulgarian artist will occur in increments throughout the exhibition’s duration, so every other day there will be a new group of artworks. 

The exhibition will end with the inverse of how it began; that is, with a completely new presentation of artists consisting of seven Bulgarian artists and one foreign artist. This component of Shape-Shifters ontologically expands curatorship, the role of the artist, and the exhibition viewer’s experience.

As such, Shape-Shifters will be inherently paradoxical; at what point can the exhibition be complete: when it opens, during its presentation, or when it reaches its termination date?

A catalog will be published to accompany the exhibition with reproductions of exhibited artworks, bios of the artists and artists’ statements, installation shots recording the exhibition’s transformation and an essay by the curator.