“Melody and rhythm of the form” – exhibition of the sculptor Angel Atanasov in Varna

The city art gallery “Boris Georgiev” in Varna presents from today, April 23, until May 18, 2024, a solo exhibition of Angel Atanasov – a sculptor whose creative interests are focused on pure forms. The exhibition includes 12 sculptures made in bronze and 4 in wood, united by the name “Melody and Rhythm of Form”.

Angel Atanasov graduated from the National Art Academy in Sofia in 1988. He won the third prize at the sculpture biennial in Toronto, Canada in 1990. He participated in sculpture symposia (1991 and 1996) and in exhibitions in the Netherlands (1991 and 1998. ). For twelve years (1999 – 2011) he was a teacher of sculpture, a colleague of Prof. Bozhidar Kozarev at the National Art Academy in Sofia.

Born in Varna and passed through the artistic community at the Vulkan factory in the 1990s, Angel Atanasov remembers how one Sunday, while he was working in his studio there, Dutch people showed up and appreciated his sculptures and his drawings with charcoal and chalk on gray paper, and invited him to a symposium in their country. This turned out to be a pivotal moment in his career as an artist. This was followed by a visit from a gallerist, also from the Netherlands, who was delighted with the compositional solution of his wooden sculptures, standing at points on the plain.

Angel Atanasov shares his ideas for the exhibition with which he is visiting his hometown to Nina Lokmadzhieva:

“Almost all sculptures are closed compositions on the theme of complex derived spatial bodies – this is part of my orientation. I am trying to classify spatial bodies, because in addition to the main and additional bodies that everyone knows about, there are complex ones that are not talked about – they are not defined. This is of great interest to me – because I see the potential possibilities of purely spatially and plastically expressing many new compositional principles and embracing old ones. It is also related to my teaching work over the years. I have then asked myself how the language of sculpture can be explained in a way that is clear. How to serve a person with things that are generally human. I turn to spatial bodies, because everywhere in the world they are spatial bodies, while with the image – the other beginning of the spatial image – there is, so to speak, regionality, there are differences. While, for example, a pyramid is everywhere perceived as a pyramid, a cone as a cone. It is a universal language of forms, which, however, does not deny the image, on the contrary – it can reach the use of an image as well, but through the forms related to the language of sculpture. In principle, the sculptural form is a harmony between the pure spatial bodies and the image, even in Ancient Greece it is so. It is no accident that they then had a geometric canon, which is a spatial canon, and they used it. Therefore, in Greek sculpture there are elements that are not natural form, but pure sculptural form – the language of sculpture is a little more complex, it is not the language of nature.

In Bulgarian art, and not only in it, I have always been very impressed by the work of Lyubomir Dalchev – his compositional skills, which are very strong, and the undeniable use of conventional form in the figures. As it is in the composition with Samuel’s soldiers – he gets to things that are very deep in the language of sculpture – like form, like the arrangement of the compositions, like the construction of the figures themselves – the dynamics by which they are displayed – the theme is expressed through the language of the space and the form – something that is very impressive to me.

And contemporary art more or less starts from Africa, in Western Europe from the 1960s to the 1990s a lot of people worked in this direction – pure spatial bodies, while in Bulgaria this was not accepted, because the conjuncture in our country is mainly related to the pictorial beginning, the other was considered formal art. Social art is not complete because it does not make a connection between these two beginnings – excluding one beginning, it cannot be complete. And the harmony between these two principles is very important. At Brancusi, for example, still has images, while I try to emphasize the spatial bodies. I like his purity and simplicity – he is a benchmark of the last century as a sculptor. But I would say that in my activities there is no denial of anything, there is a deep penetration. I also use elements characteristic of the image – it is inevitable when you work with one, you also use the other – only at the level of activity of the space, and not as a real transfer. The topic for me is the compositional decision – whether the composition is vertical or horizontal, what are the connections between the facades and the impact on the space and what will be the degree of plasticity. These are my subjects, form building itself is also a subject as possible compositional principles – that is why most of my sculptures are closed compositions – they do not attack the space, as an open composition that takes in air does.”

The opening of Angel Atanasov’s exhibition is at 6 pm today. Svetlana Valkova talks to the sculptor: