Radostin Sedevchev is working with original documents from the past. Not the ones kept in archives and libraries but with found “objects”. He is tracking and purchasing them at flea markets – photographs, letters, diaries, school exercise books, notebooks and other such testimonies. These are forever detached from their authors; these have become useless and somehow anonymous. They contain events and details from the private lives of “ordinary people”; they are often neglected by the big, collective History, which is in the textbooks.
The artist’s method is reinterpretation – visual, textual, and semantic, always sensitive and respectful to the source but totally free while creating an autonomous image, narrative, and illusion. The authentic source material is the “izhodnik” (neologism in Bulgarian – a starting code) – a term that has become popular with IT experts, signifying the initial, open source code, which allows for further modifications and multiplication of viewpoints.
 
Iara Boubnova

“… unknown people, engaged in various trivial everyday activities, which Radostin Sedevchev reveals to the audience as seen through his own eyes. The major story and the important, common-scale re-reading of the past is absent… Instead, the artist engages in the the continuous scrutiny of the minor and insignificant, which everyone can understand and interpret on their own.” 

Vladiya Mihaylova

Memory, time and identity together situate a perfect blend that erupts as a strange tentacular growth in your mind. A familiar, yet bizarre simulacrum of existence starts to appear on the photos you are confronted by. Its semi-amnesiac trope is the secret revealed in between the exhibition and your experience of it. The memento is the scars, cuts and bruises. You could ask yourself why it seems so familiar? It seems we are tricked to think that our photographic memory has an immune system disorder. Particularly in this line of thought, we are left with something neither eternal nor transient; a perverted sense of self carried through a retinal detAchment.

 Lars Nordby

Born: 

January 1988, Pernik, Bulgaria

Education:

2018

– PhD in visual arts, National Academy of art, Sofia Bulgaria

2017 


– ICA Sofia- Close encounters visual dialogs, School4artists

2014

– National academy of art, Sofia, Bulgaria, MA Mural painting

2012 

– National academy of art, Sofia, Bulgaria, BA Mural painting

 

Academic mobility:

2017 

– Erasmus + Program. Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Dresden, Germany

2011

– Erasmus  Program. North Wales school of art and design (Glyndwr University), Wrexham, Wales

 

Residencies:

2017

– NAF Academy: Bloom again. Eleusis, Greece

2014

– Cite internationale des artes. Paris, France

Artist talks:

2022

– A conversation with Radostin Sedevchev through the Room of Things, Manifesta 14, CNP, Prishtina

2018

– Something old something new something borrowed something blue, STRUCTURA gallery, Sofia, moderator Stefka Tsaneva

– 15 minutes of fame, Tell me bar, Moderators: Martina Vacheva and Valko Chobanov, Curator: Vera Mlechevska

2017

– Night shift No. 2, Hip hip library, Sofia, moderator Desislava Pancheva

 

Solo shows

2022

– One must imagine Sisyphus happy, Plus359 gallery, Sofia, curator Irina Batkova

– Zeitnot, Tam, Veliko Tarnovo

2021

– This clear-cut world died without leaving behind it a charnel house, National Gallery, Sofia, curator Iara Boubnova  

2019 

– “Neither eternal nor transient” Heerz Tooya gallery, Veliko Tarnovo,

2018

– Present absence, ICA-Sofia, curator Iara Boubnova

– Denomination, Ö space, Sofia (pop-up)

2017

– Unforseeable past, Vaska Emanuilova gallery, Sofia, curator Vladiya Mihaylova 

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2023

– Closing the Circle, MTACA artspace, Cluj

– Beyond all reason. In the mirror of surreal times, Structura Gallery Sofia, curated by Gregor Jansen

2022

– Riff Raff show, ICA-Sofia

– Stick your finger in the soil to smell where you are, Toplocentrala, Sofia, curated by Lars Nordby

– Self-splaining (a Triumph of Empathy), Manifesta 14, Venue: Gallery of the Faculty of Arts Rruga Agim Ramadani, Prishtina, curated by ICA-Sofia

– Over the past year, SAMCA curated by Iara Boubnova

– Tirazh: Collection of independent artist books
run by KO-OP Gallery and TI-RE platform

2021

– In Defence of Solid Material, Sarieva Gallery, Plovdiv, curated by Vesselina Sarieva

–No artist can predict the future, KO-OP art space, Sofia, curated by Martin Atanasov, Krasimira Butseva and Vasil Vladimirov

– The Pric/ze is Right – NEXT Balkan: Bulgarian Contemporary Art in Belgrade 2021, Ostavinska gallery, Belgrade, Serbia, curated by Voin de Voin, Martina Stefanova 

– The possible institution, Swimming pool, Sofia, curated by Viktoria Draganova, assistant Galena Sardamova

– The herbarium as a place for strong ideas. Sofia Arsenal – Museum of Contemporary Art, curated by Irina Batkova

2020

– InSitu-Institute, ICA-Sofia

– Fragments, Sofia hystory museum, curated by Vesela Nozharova

– Drawing Restrict, Rosa Stern Space, Munich, curated by Stefka Tsaneva

2019

– FINALE, Structura Gallery Sofia, curated by Maria Vassileva

– Earthbound, Geothe institute Sofia, curated by Marie Himmerich

– Baza contemporary art award 2019, Sofia city gallery, curated by Daniela Radeva

– The goods of time, Geothe institute Sofia, curated by Anastasya Skvortsova

– Gaze & Dialogue: Splendours of Sino-Bulgarian Cultural Heritages, Ningbo Library Art Space, Ningbo, China

– Re/Constructions of Memory, 0GMS gallery, Sofia, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova

– Out of the box, Æther, Sofia

2018

– The shape of time, Red point gallery Sofia, curated by Martina Yordanova

– Baza contemporary art award 2018, Sofia city gallery, curated by Daniela Radeva

– Love moves, Generator, Sofia, curated by Simeon Vassilev

2017

– A show without a title but in the holiday spirit, ICA-Sofia, curated by Iara Boubnova

–  Shifting layers, Sofia city gallery, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova

– School4artists, ICA gallery, Sofia, curated by Iara Bubnova, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Krassimir Terziev

– The Image is No Longer Available. Credo Bonum gallery Sofia, Bulgaria, curated by Vesela Nozharova

– Art Start: Young Artist to Follow in 2017. Credo Bonum gallery Sofia, curated by Vesela Nozharova, Stefka Tsaneva, Daniela radeva

– Mixed Pickles. gallery HfBK, Dresden, Germany, curated by Susanne Greinke

2015

– Sofia Queer Forum. Academia gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria, curated by Vladiya Mihaylova

– Water Tower Art Festival. Underground mining museum, Pernik, Bulgaria, curated by Nia Pushkarova

2014 

– Nefest 2. Zone culture exhibition space, Sofia, Bulgaria, curated by Nora Karalambeva

2013 

– Photography – Ne fest. Rubber gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria, curated by Nora Karalambeva.

– International Biennial of Painting. Chisinau, Moldova, curated by Tudor Zbarnea

2012 

 Idea for Home, The Library. Sofia press Gallery; Debut Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria, curated by Peter Tsanev