March 10 – April 10, 2021
The Gallery of the UBA, 6 Shipka Str.

The 7 х 5 х 3 project brought together 7 curator projects, presenting 5 authors by 3 works each. It was motivated by the rise of a new generation of art critics and artists, working in the conditions of a dynamically changing art scene. In its essence, this was a exploratory project attempting to find an answer to what is happening today within the broad and multifaceted space of contemporary Bulgarian painting.

The 7 х 5 х 3 project was an update of the three editions of the 10 х 5 х 3 project, which is now well in the past. In 2001, 2006 and 2011, some 30 points of view were proposed and 150 artists were presented who had contributed to the shaping of new trends in the development of contemporary Bulgarian painting. This later project involved 7 young art critics who analyzed and presented arguments about current processes in contemporary Bulgarian painting. Stanislava Nikolovaʼs Critical Review project drew bridges between past and present. Five artists presented their artistic reflections on certain program texts allotted for each of them, written by some of the most prominent art critics of the 1920ʼs: Sirak Skitnik, Nikolay Raynov and Geo Milev. @Boriana Valchanovaʼs Nuances presented authors who apply diverse approaches to the making of their artistic matter, who use non-conventional materials, techniques and devices. In her project, MACROmicron, Elitsa Terzieva analyzed how to “master” the infinite and bring it within the limits of human senses, using the hypersensitivity of artists. Surreal or Beyond Reality and Rumena Kalcheva posed the question of whether it is possible to speak of Bulgarian surrealism as a distinct field in contemporary Bulgarian painting. In Beyond Conception, Suzana Karanfilova constructed her project around a consciously selected critical position on current events in Bulgarian art and peopleʼs lives. Valentin Slaveev and his Transcription within Spaces attempted to find the conventions between a painting, thought of as a closed space in its material limitations, and its author as an open space, familiar with his/her own inner world, yet able to transcribe the outer one. In Figuratively Speaking, Lyuben Domozetsky contemplated on the meaning and the position of images in contemporary painting. The project was implemented jointly with the “Painting” section of the UBA. A catalog was published in Bulgarian and English.

The project was supported financially by the Ministry of Culture.