Plamen Dejanoff
01 Jun - 09 Sep 2012
PLAMEN DEJANOFF
The Bronze House
1 June - 9 September 2012
he extraordinary volumes of MAMbo’s Sala delle Ciminiere exalt the monumentality of the sculptural work in which the artist works with an empty architectural grid as an ideal model, abstracting the decorations of historical buildings and translating them into an open structure.
MAMbo opens its space to Plamen Dejanoff hosting The Bronze House, an extraordinary exhibition that fits in with the project of approach to the realization of the biggest bronze monument ever created in the Modern and Contemporary Art: an incredible house made of more than 600 square metres and completely made of bronze, that will be built in Bulgaria after the partial, but majestic, presentation of its elements in some prestigious European Museums.
The Bronze House is a long-term project by Plamen Dejanoff, representing the most ambitious undertaking in a career characterized by the artist’s exploration of the bonds between art and economic processes, and the role of the artist and what he can actually do in contemporary society. This quest has made him an unconventional and controversial figure, perennially caught between the deft manipulation of aesthetic strategies proper to late-capitalistic globalized society and an ironic and disenchanted critique of the art system.
The artist began in 2006 to delineate and develop his monumental Planets of Comparison project for his birthplace, Veliko Tarnovo, a charming city of Medieval origin which still conserves traces of its glorious past as capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Dejanoff acquired a number of worksites in the city center with plans to build infrastructure made of bronze. The idea was to create a public cultural center featuring a library, a cinema, a theatre, an exhibition venue, and an artistic workshop. His original intention then expanded to the conception of a broader and more complex undertaking, in which the artist simultaneously plays the roles of manager, curator, architect, designer, and collector. The success of this venture depends on the joint participation of a network of international partners comprising artists, curators, collectors, museums, galleries, and publishing houses. To finance his idea, Dejanoff created a specific foundation that he promotes through a meticulous marketing strategy.
The Bronze House is the first of these architectural installations, genuinely habitable sculptures, to assume concrete form in a colossal villa measuring over 600 square meters, which will be assembled in Bulgaria. Progress in the construction process is presented in a traveling exposition that has already visited a number of prestigious European museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation of Vienna (MUMOK), the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art of Vienna (MAK), and the Kunstverein of Hamburg. After the Italian show at the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna (MAMbo), it will move on to the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Champagne-Ardenne (FRAC) in Reims.
The extraordinary volumes of MAMbo’s Sala delle Ciminiere exalt the monumentality of the sculptural work in which the artist works with an empty architectural grid as an ideal model, abstracting the decorations of historical buildings and translating them into an open structure.
The conceptual process that led the artist to design a model of the political economy of art, mirroring society and current artistic conventions, is resolved in the creation of a highly evocative total work of art. It sparks reflection on issues such as the mechanisms and purposes of museums in occupying ideological spaces, and the implications of an artist hosting a museum rather than vice-versa.
We will not know if Plamen Dejanoff’s gamble on bringing about a process to create recognized value in the current world art system can ultimately be successful until this revolutionary project is complete and functional.
The exhibition concludes with architectural models and prototypes, sketches, drawings, and collages that provide an in-depth illustration of the various preliminary phases of development of the work, as well as a number of installations that lie somewhere between conceptual and hyper-pop imaginary art.
To mark the exhibition an Instant Book has been published by Edizioni MAMbo in a bilingual edition (Italian / English) containing an essay by Gianfranco Maraniello with excerpt’s from Plamen Dejanoff’s letters, accompanied by an extensive iconographic apparatus.
The exhibition dedicated to Plamen Dejanoff is part of the program titled Criticism that MAMbo has conducted since 2006. Embodying study and critical thinking on artistic practices and the role of the contemporary museum, the program has involved such artists as Ryan Gander, Paolo Chiasera, Markus Schinwald, Giovanni Anselmo, Christopher Williams, Bojan Sarcevic, Adam Chodzko, Eva Marisaldi, Diego Perrone, Ding Yi, DeRijkeDe Rooij, GuytonWalker, Natasha Sadr Haghighian, Trisha Donnelly, Sarah Morris, Seth Price, Matthew Day Jackson, and Marcel Broodthaers.
The Bronze House
1 June - 9 September 2012
he extraordinary volumes of MAMbo’s Sala delle Ciminiere exalt the monumentality of the sculptural work in which the artist works with an empty architectural grid as an ideal model, abstracting the decorations of historical buildings and translating them into an open structure.
MAMbo opens its space to Plamen Dejanoff hosting The Bronze House, an extraordinary exhibition that fits in with the project of approach to the realization of the biggest bronze monument ever created in the Modern and Contemporary Art: an incredible house made of more than 600 square metres and completely made of bronze, that will be built in Bulgaria after the partial, but majestic, presentation of its elements in some prestigious European Museums.
The Bronze House is a long-term project by Plamen Dejanoff, representing the most ambitious undertaking in a career characterized by the artist’s exploration of the bonds between art and economic processes, and the role of the artist and what he can actually do in contemporary society. This quest has made him an unconventional and controversial figure, perennially caught between the deft manipulation of aesthetic strategies proper to late-capitalistic globalized society and an ironic and disenchanted critique of the art system.
The artist began in 2006 to delineate and develop his monumental Planets of Comparison project for his birthplace, Veliko Tarnovo, a charming city of Medieval origin which still conserves traces of its glorious past as capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Dejanoff acquired a number of worksites in the city center with plans to build infrastructure made of bronze. The idea was to create a public cultural center featuring a library, a cinema, a theatre, an exhibition venue, and an artistic workshop. His original intention then expanded to the conception of a broader and more complex undertaking, in which the artist simultaneously plays the roles of manager, curator, architect, designer, and collector. The success of this venture depends on the joint participation of a network of international partners comprising artists, curators, collectors, museums, galleries, and publishing houses. To finance his idea, Dejanoff created a specific foundation that he promotes through a meticulous marketing strategy.
The Bronze House is the first of these architectural installations, genuinely habitable sculptures, to assume concrete form in a colossal villa measuring over 600 square meters, which will be assembled in Bulgaria. Progress in the construction process is presented in a traveling exposition that has already visited a number of prestigious European museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Ludwig Foundation of Vienna (MUMOK), the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art of Vienna (MAK), and the Kunstverein of Hamburg. After the Italian show at the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna (MAMbo), it will move on to the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Champagne-Ardenne (FRAC) in Reims.
The extraordinary volumes of MAMbo’s Sala delle Ciminiere exalt the monumentality of the sculptural work in which the artist works with an empty architectural grid as an ideal model, abstracting the decorations of historical buildings and translating them into an open structure.
The conceptual process that led the artist to design a model of the political economy of art, mirroring society and current artistic conventions, is resolved in the creation of a highly evocative total work of art. It sparks reflection on issues such as the mechanisms and purposes of museums in occupying ideological spaces, and the implications of an artist hosting a museum rather than vice-versa.
We will not know if Plamen Dejanoff’s gamble on bringing about a process to create recognized value in the current world art system can ultimately be successful until this revolutionary project is complete and functional.
The exhibition concludes with architectural models and prototypes, sketches, drawings, and collages that provide an in-depth illustration of the various preliminary phases of development of the work, as well as a number of installations that lie somewhere between conceptual and hyper-pop imaginary art.
To mark the exhibition an Instant Book has been published by Edizioni MAMbo in a bilingual edition (Italian / English) containing an essay by Gianfranco Maraniello with excerpt’s from Plamen Dejanoff’s letters, accompanied by an extensive iconographic apparatus.
The exhibition dedicated to Plamen Dejanoff is part of the program titled Criticism that MAMbo has conducted since 2006. Embodying study and critical thinking on artistic practices and the role of the contemporary museum, the program has involved such artists as Ryan Gander, Paolo Chiasera, Markus Schinwald, Giovanni Anselmo, Christopher Williams, Bojan Sarcevic, Adam Chodzko, Eva Marisaldi, Diego Perrone, Ding Yi, DeRijkeDe Rooij, GuytonWalker, Natasha Sadr Haghighian, Trisha Donnelly, Sarah Morris, Seth Price, Matthew Day Jackson, and Marcel Broodthaers.