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A project by Iskra Blagoeva
Radoslav Maglov
Radoslav Maglov, born in 1978, is a Bulgarian artist who obtained a PhD degree from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia in 2023.
His work delves into the potential overflow of essences from object to subject and vice versa, as well as the capacity to assign moral categories to subjective sensations. In Maglov’s artistic endeavors, the bodily experience serves both as a medium and an outcome, inseparably intertwined with every aesthetic encounter. Through his interdisciplinary and experimental approach, Maglov aims to challenge conventional notions of the body and its relationship to ethical categories and social prejudices. Maglov’s work invites the audience to reflect on the transformative nature of the body, presenting it as a mental resource that can be consumed in a transgressive form of expression.
He employs a variety of media, including video, installations, sculptures, and paintings, to convey his message.
Education, Awards & Selected Exhibitions: Education 2023 – PhD – National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria 2021 – Academic exchange – research department of the University of the Arts Helsinki 2020 – Academic exchange – Universitatea de Artă si Design din Cluj-Napoca, Romania 2005 – MA Sculpture – National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria 2003 – BA Fine arts – National Academy of Arts, Sofia, Bulgaria Selected Prizes 2015 – Award of Union of Bulgarian Artists (UBA), grant for cultural exchange, Paris, 2015/2016 2005 – Sculpture Commission of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – 1st prize 2002 – “Computer Space 2002” – XIV International Festival for Computer Arts Sofia – 2nd prize Residences 2015/2016 – Cité internationale des arts, Paris, France Selected Solo Exhibitions 2021 – “Ontologies of the uncanny” – Arosita gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria 2021 – “Wired\weird” – Credo Bonum gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria 2020 – “Primaformance” – Permanent art installation at Sofia ZOO, Sofia, Bulgaria 2020 – “The poet’s mirror” – Permanent public outdoor art installation, Stara Zagora, Bulgaria 2020 – “Segments” – Cu29 Gallery – Plovdiv, Bulgaria 2019 – “Eastern trails” – Galerie plan.d. – Dusseldorf, Germany 2018 – “Restless transitions” – Goethe Institute Bulgaria- Sofia, Bulgaria 2018 – “Geometry/Anatomy” – Municipal Art Gallery – Sozopol, Bulgaria 2018 – “Solids & Voids” – SITTart Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany 2017 – “Hoc est enim corpus meum / at the bottom of the Saturn hole” – “Rayko Aleksiev” gallery, Sofia 2016 – “Out of Memory”, “Cu29” gallery, Plovdiv 2016 – “#8311”, Cité internationale des arts, Paris 2013 – “No Sigh”, the Fridge Art Space, Sofia 2011 – “Vague objects”, “Cont Androvanti” gallery, Bourgas 2009 – “The Roads of Asia” – international art project, Bulgaria, Russia, Romania, Kazakhstan, Moldova Selected Group Exhibitions and Festivals 2019 – “SAW-Sofia Art Week 2019” – Sofia, Bulgaria 2019 – “C (Carbon)” – the Red Dot Depot & Gallery, Sofia 2019 – “Contemporary painting 2019 – 5 years Bankya Art Center” – Bankya Art Center, Bankya 2018 – “Chasing evil spirits away” – Rayko Aleksiev Gallery, Sofia 2016 – “Allianz Bulgaria Holding” – national exhibition at UBA, Sofia 2016 – “Water Tower Art Fest” – 10th edition, Sofia 2016 – “Sofia Underground”- Art Festival, Sofia 2016 – “Allianz Bulgaria Holding” – national awards, Sofia 2014 – “Sculpture Symposium Mezdra” – 6th edition, Mezdra 2013 – “National Sculpture Exhibition”, “Union of Bulgarian Artists” gallery, Sofia 2012 – “Allianz Bulgaria Holding”, national awards, Plovdiv 2005 – “Youth Days of Culture – Sofia” – festival, Sofia Municipality 2004 – “Open Air Sculpture”, Sofia Municipality and the National Academy of Arts
“Hoc est enim corpus meum” – a phrase with biblical origin in Latin, which in common translation reads “(For) this is my Body”. Words pronounced for thousands of years have passed beyond their direct meaning, beyond their marginality. Maglov summarizes the image simultaneously in a conceptual and radically plastic manner, using universal values specific to the generalized truths that have reached us trough a dead language. The installation contains a group of sculptural objects that can be viewed as a whole but also as separate works – essences.”
“The installation itself evolves around the problem of the boundary between the individual and the group, but it is only its social reading. Formally, the animal pack taking the gallery room, raises a lot of questions, overcomes a problematic boundary between plastic stylization and contemporary marking of the image, establishing a universal object, focusing on a dramatic phrase. The objects are partly filled with fleeting volume and at the same time they lack of mass, loaded with tension but also with fatigue.”
Bereaving identity, how this is affecting the process of contemplation? Is it that, the lack of identity brings universal qualities, opens the possibilities of how something or someone is perceived. Whether it is possible to think of the loss of identity in a similar light, whether it is the event that initiates the possibilities of general transformations. “The maiden unveiled” is a questioner, it is a formulation of an act, defining the range of possibilities, not a straight answer.
“Pagan rite” is a work built around contradiction and the result of the direct collision itself.
The process of creating the work involved various practices corresponding to the idea. The bronze casts, used for this work, are unique copies of each one. These bull and horse heads have collided/crushed to the steel drums in an act of a “pagan” ritual.
