exhibitions

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Bulgarian Design Review | А Matter of Image

Dimiter Ilchev, Dora Ivanova, Elena Chergilanova, Iva Ivanova, Martin Grigorov, Nikola Lamburov, Pavel Pavlov, Alexandra Vacheva, Stefani Nedelcheva
All

HERE, WHERE I AM

Yusuf Younes Abdulrahman, Abdulhamid Alsalem, Mohamed Al Arab, Hani Mohamed Idi and Zaid Hamad
Focus Ecologies

Ecologies of Prehod

Nicolás Kisic Aguirre, Katarina Burin, Sam Ghantous, Elitza Koeva, Manar Moursi

Ecologies of Prehod engages with sites of ruination in Bulgaria through sculpture, installation, sound, and moving-image work.
All

DEVET SLONA

NINE ELEPHANTS Art in the city

DEVET SLONA (Nine Elephants) is a summer art-in-the-city program that will take place for the first time between 11 and 21 July 2024 in Sofia. Together with artists, authors, researchers, experts and residents, we will tell and share the city in a new and extraordinary way, using the calm of the summer weeks and transporting ourselves to different neighbourhoods in the city.
All

Lobster and shrimp on my plate, I need my pockets so fat they inflate. Vol.3: Transportation

An exhibition by Robin Phoenix Whitehouse and Todor Rabadzhiyski

“Lobster and Shrimp on My Plate, I need my pockets so fat they inflate” is a durational project that started three years ago and delves into the culture and changing economy associated with lobsters – whether it be food for the rich or poor, eaten to announce a celebration or dissected with cutlery before another business call. In the third showcase of their ongoing project at Swimming Pool, artists Robin Phoenix Whitehouse (UK) and Todor Rabadzhiyski (BG) are considering how the Lobster has been reinvented through the ages, and how marketing has portrayed a certain image of the lobster that is becoming an analogy for the current time.
ВСИЧКИ

The Vigilant Writers

An exhibition of Aleksandra Chaushova
All

Danser Chanter Aimer (Dance Sing Love)

An exhibition by Valentina Traïanova

“Dancer Chanter Aimer” brings together never before exhibited drawings, sound sculptures, a video performance as well as the performance “Lust”, written especially for this exhibition. They all derive from the same gesture and reveal a process – each work is in fact multiple in its forms, and sometimes in dialogue with other works of literary or artistic movements: Mary Wigman’s Hexentanz with “Danse de la sorcière”; Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate with “Schtipta canta kak ta rooooo ooo u”; Barnett Newman’s Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue with “Who’s afraid of a signer”? Last but not least, Antony Trayanov’s world of animation and his film “Point of View” („Гледна точка“) are reflected in the “Flaque” series by Valentina Traïanova.
Focus New Ecologies

New Ecologies

Billy Mateeva, Elena Nazarova, Marina Genova, Maria Nalbantova, Martin Atanasov, Nevena Ekimova, Cédric Van Parys

А project about a different approach to the concept of "environment". And while we traditionally associate it with nature and biodiversity conservation, it has meanwhile received an important development to include anthropogenic ("man-made") factors.
All

Networks of De-institutional Architecture: Bulgaria

Work-in-progress exhibition by arch. Ivan Bonev

"Networks of De-institutional Architecture" is a research of the non-institutional phenomenon of the common spaces in the city. It tells the story of the places that host people's everyday shared activities and describes little-known aspects of the cities we live in, presenting architecture, behaviour and governance of individual examples and networks of de-institutional spaces.
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No Man's Land

An exhibition by Dessislava Terzieva

For the series “Illegal Аliens” (2022-), the artist transported Bulgarian idioms and store titles onto abandoned stand alone structures in Detroit. The exhibition in Swimming Pool features documentation of the “Illegal aliens” in Detroit. While the photographs look somber and distant, they question whether representation is possible at all, or is it rather demarcating the ghostly presence of these texts that exist as foreign entities in the space they inhabit.
All

SKY OF WAR

An exhibition by Daria Pugachova

The sky of war is a sky of threat, or this is what the sky became in Ukraine with the beginning of the war.
The Library of Our Encounters

the library of our encounters 2

WORDS BETWEEN US, HANGING JUST SO

The second edition of The Library of Our Encounters, titled words between us, hanging just so, continues to explore the idea of the encounter as a space for reflection and transformation. The project combines the personal and the collective – and turns the encounter between people and ideas into a way to slow down and reconsider our surrounding reality.
Тerra Ultima

A visual poem by BOYAN MANCHEV | Project of METHEOR with the participation of Ani Vaseva, Stefan Donchev, Ivan Nikolov and Boyan Manchev / strx

The installation Terra ultima, a limit land, introduces the image of a fantastic North – the limit of the human world, beyond which the subject enters the wilderness of the unknown; a limit of nature, where nature, facing an unimaginable future, emerges from its course. A space of rupture where bodies rise. Poem about rupture and coincidence, about obsession.
there is not, there is not a soul

an exhibition by Dorota Gawęda and Egle Kulbokaitė

Swimming Pool is delighted to present "there is, there is not a soul", an exhibition by artist duo Dorota Gawęda and Egle Kulbokaitė that is to open on June 24, followed by a new iteration of the Young Girl Reading Group on June 25.
Focus Institutions

The Possible Institution

a project and an exhibition with Ina Valentinova, Yasen Vasilev, Lubomir Draganov, Stefan Ivanov, Maria Nalbantova, Radostin Sedevchev, Martin Penev, MIryana Todorova

a project about institutions – real, desired, past, internal, fantastic – and the possibilities within them. The Possible Institution is part of a series of studies included in Swimming Pool’s programme, which are devoted to the models of institutionality and processes of instituting today.
PRETTY SURE IT’S JUST THE WIND

An exhibition WITH MINHYEOK AHN, SO YEON KIM, KRISTINA LOVAAS AND RUDI NINOV

pretty sure it’s just the wind is a project and an exhibition by four artists who live and work in Frankfurt am Main that spans across two locations in Sofia: Goethe Institute and Swimming Pool.
The Library of Our Encounters

ТHE LIBRARY OF OUR ENCOUNTERS

IN COLLABORATION WITH CHRISTOPH SZALAY AND FOTINI LAZARIDOU-HATZIGOGА

The Library of Our Encounters is a long-term project of Swimming Pool within the residency program with Akademie Schloss Solitude, dedicated to what has changed most radically lately: the encounter—as event, presence, time and meaning.
ALL THE THINGS WHICH ARE NOT HERE

A PERFORMANCE AND EXHIBITION BY IRINA GHEORGHE

All the Things Which Are Not Here, a project by Romanian-born and Berlin-based artist Irina Gheorghe, brings together various techniques to approach that which is not present in the space of Swimming Pool. If, for things which are here, a whole range of practices are available, the same cannot be said about things which are not here. We can measure the space between things which are here; but how can we measure the distance to something which is not here? How can we measure the distance between something which is here and something which is not here? How do we communicate with that which is not here?
THE NEWEST SMALL PAINTINGS OF THE SWIMMER

А SOLO EXHIBITION BY ALZEK MISHEFF

August 1971. Alzek Misheff, already in the water in Koper, Slovenia, was just about to swim the 15-odd kilometers to Trieste. But then, by chance, an elderly couple passed by, walking along the deserted shore, and told him to get out of the water straight away – yesterday they had seen several sharks, a rarity in the bay. Misheff set out across the mountain, and after wandering for around 40 hours, finally got to Italy…
INTERCONNECTION: ON BODIES OF WATER

AN EXHIBITION WITH CATHERINE BIOCCA, VALKO CHOBANOV, NONA INESCU, MARIA NALBANTOVA, JAKUB NEPRAŠ, PETR NIKL, TABITA REZAIRE, KAROLÍNA ROSSÍ, PAVEL STEREC AND JOHANA STŘÍŽKOVÁ

We are delighted to invite you to Interconnection: On Bodies of Water, an exhibition that revolves around ideas of ecofeminism and, in particular, of hydrofeminism. This is the second exhibition within the long-term project Islands: Possibilities of Togetherness, launched in 2019 by the Jindřich Chalupecký Society, a Czech platform for contemporary arts. The exhibition includes works by Catherine Biocca, Valko Chobanov, Nona Inescu, Maria Nalbantova, Jakub Nepraš, Petr Nikl, Karolína Rossí and Johana Střížková.
IN HER PLACE: GINA FOLLY & LORENZO SANDOVAL

A RESIDENCY ORGANIZED BY E.M.M.A. AND CURATED BY VERONICA VALENTINI

E.M.M.A., in collaboration with Swimming Pool, is pleased to present solo projects by Lorenzo Sandoval and Gina Folly realized in the context of the annual roaming program of artistic research In Her Place. This year the program has started in Tangier with a four-days communal gathering that reunites various artists, researchers, curators and citizens to study collectively notions of displacement and the unknown аs we face these in everyday life.
WHAT WE KNOW

AN EXHIBITION BY ESRA ERSEN IN COLLABORATION WITH ALMA MATER GALLERY AT SOFIA UNIVERSITY AND BULGARIAN NATIONAL LIBRARY

Swimming Pool, in collaboration with Alma Mater Gallery at the Cultural Center of Sofia University as well as the National Library, is pleased to announce the exhibition What We Know by Ankara-born, Berlin- based artist Esra Ersen. The exhibition shows, for the first time in its entirety, Ersen’s long term research, culminating in the two-part film installation Possible History I+II (2013-2015). At the intersection of documentary and fiction, the work interweaves Turkey’s past and present with that of several Balkan states, while directly engaging with Bulgaria’s cultural history and historiography.
NATURA MORTA

AN EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCE BY MLADEN ALEXIEV

NATURA MORTA is a project by the theatre director Mladen Alexiev consisted by two parallel events – an exhibition and a performance, in which the author expands his interest in narratives and hybrid presentation formats. NATURA MORTA is the third piece in the frame of the long-term research project Splendor Solis.
A RAT

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY VERA PALME

A rat is walking into a bar to debunk a joke. Coming from the Twilight Zone it is living between structures, inhabiting shade. A story within a story. We know that speaking out is never the end, but always a beginning. Replenishing the currency of information, it is followed by a process of questioning where people are mute, proof is lost and sources confused. It has consequences. Knowledge sinks in a fear-driven, conspiracy-led hysterical reality mainly building upon distorting communicative structures of mass-media. This is where a rat has always been an aggressor and vice versa: a stimulant. When sources are forever dislocated, what then belongs to this world?
POOL PAINTINGS PART I

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY NAVINE G. KHAN-DOSSOS

Pool Paintings Part I is both a figurative response to the site-specificity of Swimming Pool and an abstract flight of imagination. It began with a conversation, and Navine G. Khan-Dossos’ request to explore the possibility of returning the pool to its former glory: a water-filled hole perched on the rooftop of a building in central Sofia. But as the proposed insurance and engineering costs and permissions mounted up, it became clear that such a large undertaking would remain within the realms of imagination.
AN OBJECT OF CONCERN

А SOLO EXHIBITION BY MARTIN PENEV

We all shine and we long. And we will long. But it seems as only through a polished surface we are ready to show life. Gold is the aura of the inner good and prouder out. Is this knighthood in media time or the cinematic reality of a sign, devoid of time and meaning, like optimal marketing fed by narcissism? A flag for a doomed expectation, but festive in its self-oblivion.
THE BLUSHING VALLEY

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY GERY GEORGIEVA

Valleys are productive regions. Cultivated lands. Valleys are warm, lush, sheltered areas. Every so often, at dusk they seem to suck the sluggish, hot and heavy sky down their sloped walls as the sun retracts its rays, then you might say the valley is melancholic.
THE NEWS

А SOLO EXHIBITION BY TOBY CHRISTIAN, CURATED BY DAVID DALE GALLERY, GLASGOW

David Dale Gallery and Swimming Pool are delighted to present a solo exhibition of new work by Glasgow based artist Toby Christian, at Swimming Pool, Sofia. The exhibition is the second of a series of exchanges between the two organisations and is curated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow. It follows on It is Forever Ours, which Swimming Pool curated in Glasgow in the summer.
IVAN SPASOV: HEAVENLY BLUE MORNING, NOON AND THE PATHWAY BEHIND NOON 28 SEPTEMBER – 8 OCTOBER 2017

DOMUS AUREA
E%

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY MARY WALLING BLACKBURN

E% is a newly commissioned work and performance by artist Mary Walling Blackburn by Art in General, New York in partnership with Swimming Pool to take place in July and August at Swimming Pool.
IT IS FOREVER OURS

AN EXHIBITION BY STEFANIA BATOEVA AND GORAN CHANTER

You might have been here before. The pontoon, rising over a smooth sea, reflections of glaring sun, magnum surface, bliss. Did we ever believe in an aligned past, present and future to entirely saturate our presence? Now, it seems like we are totally fine with having it all ending.
MY DEAR PROVINCIALIST

AN EXHIBITION BY VALKO CHOBANOV, KRASIMIRA KIROVA, DIMITAR SHOPOV, TRIFON TASHEV, MARTINA VACHEVA, INA VALENTINOVA

Last year, I loosely messaged few of you, proposing to meet. Soon we sat together – spending a few evenings on the benches in front of Crystal Club, later gathering in Dimitar’s studio in Plovdiv. Fine, let’s do a show, you told me, but all together, as a group. And, we’d call ourselves “Provincialists”.
PURE BREATHS

A SOLO EXHIBITION BY BIANCA BALDI

Breath inhabits the body. Through breathing, imaginary beings and spirits followed by images, words and ideas move in and out of the body. These can give life, but can also lead to demonic possessions.
STATES OF FLUX

THE SUNNIEST BEACH (1). AFTER THE SPLASH (2). THE SANGUINE (3). THE TOKEN (4). FOUR-PART EXHIBITION AT DIFFERENT VENUES

States of Flux evolves around four sites as its decentred stages: a hotel in the tourist resort Sunny Beach on the Black Sea; the rooftop premises of Swimming Pool in Sofia, with an empty pool; a hot spring in a mountain village near the city; and, far from the South of Europe, a self-service laundry in Frankfurt am Main. These semi-public places form the spine of an imaginary geography of flux.
The Sunniest Beach (1) EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCES WITH FLORIAN AUER, STANIMIR GENOV, TIRIL HASSELKNIPPE, MARTIN KOHOUT, HANNE LIPPARD, MICHELE DI MENNA, SHANA MOULTON, PAKUI HARDWARE, KALINA TERZIEVA, TORE WALLERT, AND ANNA ZACHAROFF

STATES OF FLUX
AFTER THE SPLASH (2) EXHIBITION WITH MAX BRAND, TIRIL HASSELKNIPPE, MARTIN KOHOUT, HANNE LIPPARD, TORE WALLERT, AND ANNA ZACHAROFF

STATES OF FLUX
THE SANGUINE (3)

STATES OF FLUX
THE TOKEN (4) EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCES WITH SEBASTIAN BURGER, LUCI LIPPARD, DARDAN ZHEGROVA

STATES OF FLUX
CONSIDERED LIVING

AN EXHIBITION WITH JACK BRENNAN, CHARLIE FROUD, OLGA PEDAN

Things. Nice Things. Decorations. Trinkets. Tchotchki. What is it about objects?
Focus Institutions

US

EXHIBITION IN COLLABORATION WITH I: PROJECT SPACE (BEIJING), JENIFER NAILS (FRANKFURT), LAMBDALAMBDALAMBDA (PRISTINA), LIFE SPORT (ATHENS), LINDA (SOFIA), OPENING TIMES (LONDON), PEACH (ROTTERDAM), AND THE GREEN PARROT (BARCELONA)

SWIMMING POOL is thrilled to present its second project: us, an exhibition in collaboration with I: project space (Beijing), Jenifer Nails (Frankfurt), LambdaLambdaLambda (Pristina), Life Sport (Athens), Linda (Sofia), Opening Times (London), Peach (Rotterdam), and The Green Parrot (Barcelona). Together with these eight art spaces, we will stage a series of curatorial and artistic interventions at the premises of Swimming Pool. For one week we will turn the space into an open house of us, which we warmly invite you to share.
BALCONIA

INAUGURAL EXHIBITION WITH STEFANIA BATOEVA, YVES SCHERER AND EMANUEL RÖHSS

SWIMMING POOL is thrilled to present its inaugural exhibition Balconia with Stefania Batoeva, Yves Scherer and Emanuel Röhss. For this first show the artists traverse the real to denote new possibilities.