Luchezar Boyadjiev, Anthropocene. Cover Version, 2019. One of nine digital prints after Jan Brueghel the Younger
Anthropocene. Cover Version
2019. A set of 9 digital prints; digitally and hand-manipulated photographs after Jan Brueghel the Younger
The work is based on an idea the artist had a couple of years ago when working on high school textbooks with Prof. Albena Hranova. He was providing the visual lessons parallel to the literature lessons. For the lesson on the Biblical myth of Creation he suggested a visual scenario for how to introduce the kids (7th or 8th grade) to both the myth, ecology and all of that.
The lesson to learn was via a task to solve – imagine un-creating the world by going backwards on God’s work… Like this – “Imagine that at first the humans disappeared, etc. Describe what is left on the last day… Debate among yourselves.”
Luchezar Boyadjiev, The Anthropocene as a Prolonged-Release Anthropogenesis, 2019. Image from the working process
The Anthropocene as a Prolonged-Release Anthropogenesis
2019. Talk at the symposium
The talk will address the main problem arising between the OOO trend in philosophy and the notion of the Anthropocene from the point of view of an artist. If the Anthropocene is man-made or at least man-triggered then we are left within the anthropocentric vision of the world. The problem is how to stay anthropomorphic – for lack of another convincing option for the species, but without falling into anthropocentric nostalgia; how to avoid “saving the planet” as just a cover for “saving Homo Sapiens”.
Bio
Luchezar Boyadjiev (b. 1957) graduated from the National Art Academy in Sofia in 1980. One of the most famous contemporary artists from Bulgaria, his work is about personal interpretation of social processes, about the interaction between private and public, about urban visuality and the world of today split between utopia and dystopia. His media is installation, photography, drawing, objects, text, video, and performative lectures.
Selected exhibitions are: “Dystopian Cozy”, Sariev Contemporary, Plovdiv (2018); “Luchezar Boyadjiev. Sic transit media mundi /the present is too short and rather tight/”, Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia (retro) (2018); “Places of Wisdom”, ICA-Gallery, Sofia (in partnership with Open Arts-Plovdiv, 2016); “Not a Library Artist either”, SALT, Istanbul (2013); “Artist in the Storage” from “The Other Eye” series, City Art Gallery, Sofia (2010); and the group shows in 2019 “The Influencing Machine”, Nikodim Gallery, Bucharest, “Listen to Us – Artistic Intelligence”, the Deutsche Telecom Collection, Plovdiv’2019; and “Digital Ecologies. Operaismo Naturale”, Plovdiv in 2018; in 2017 “Economize”, Ludwig Museum, Budapest, as well as “Symptoms of Society”, Guangdong Museum of Art (Guangzhou) and Zhejiang Art Museum (Zhejiang Sheng), China; in 2016 “Cold Wind from the Balkans”, PERA Museum, Istanbul; “Upside Down: Hosting the Critique”, MCA, Belgrade, and “Low-budget Utopias”, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; in 2015 “Inside Out”, City Gallery, Ljubljana; “The Grammar of Freedom”, GARAGE Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, and “Art for Change 1985-2015”, City Art Gallery, Sofia; in 2014 “Disconsent”, CCA “Ancient Bath”, Plovdiv; in 2013 “Economics in Art”, MOCAK, Cracow; in 2012 “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times”, 1st Biennial, Kiev, and “The Eye Never Sees itself”, 2nd Biennial, Yekaterinburg; and in 2011 “The Global Contemporary”, ZKM, Karlsruhe. The artist is a Founding Member of ICA-Sofia (1995).