site.btaVarna Exhibition Shows Works by The Edge ArtGroup

A large-scale exhibition in the Black Sea city of Varna pays tribute to The Edge ArtGroup. It was a phenomenon in Bulgaria, the longest existing art group in this country, artist Emil Mirazchiev, who was among the founders of Edge, said in a BTA interview. He was in Varna to present the exhibition of Edge works and projects in the framework of the third forum "Art as Counteraction", organized by the Varna City Art Gallery.

It is for a reason that we intend to create a museum of The Edge as part of the  development strategy of the city of Plovdiv, he said. “That's why we don't sell any of the originals of the Edge members, and we have reclaimed some works that have been lost in time.”

The Edge ArtGroup was founded in Plovdiv in 1989 by the artists Albena Mihaylova, Veneta Marinova, Dimitar Kelbechev, Dimitar Mitovsky, Emil Mirazchiev, Ivaylo Grigorov, Igor Budnikov, Kolyo Karamfilov, Monika Romenska, Nadia Genova, Pavel Albert, Rumen Zhekov.

It was a closed group from the very beginning, said Mirazchiev. "Before the changes there were youth exhibitions where we used to gather. Gradually, we attracted people with similar sensitivity, aesthetics and art philosophy, we started to get together. Then it grew into a community where we really liked each other. By 1989 we would meet and discuss what direction our work was taking. We adopted a manifesto for the group and decided how we were going to define ourselves," he said.

Their first exhibition was "Symbols and Signs" in 1990 and Mirazchiev believes that with it they declared their political position. After that they didn't have so programmatic  appearances, but again they were critical and provoked discussions.

"We made a lot of extreme statements, some of which journalists would omit in their articles about us. We had a clause in our manifesto about 'keeping out of shit creek'. But let's not fool ourselves, that wasn't possible before 1989 because there were the art juries and more unconventional artists were passed over. Everything was monitored by the Party, the Komsomol, and the Union of Bulgarian Artists (UBA) was a censorial structure that controlled the processes, and therefore all the different things were happening outside the capital at plein air events and symposiums. We fought for decentralization in art with petitions, for the abolition of the monopoly of the Hemus organization, which was the only authority that sent art works abroad, against the whole structure in the sphere of art. We have declared our position on these processes and it is there in manifestos and letters," said the artist.

The activity of the Edge ArtGroup are well chronicled in a book which will be presented in Varna at the end of "Art as Counteraction" on October 10: a serious study by Zhivka Valiavicharska, who is an art historian and lecturer at the Pratt Institute in New York.

In the Varna exhibition, one can see significant works by The Edge over the years. Among them is the art action "Black Happening", which is a form of protest against a non-ferrous metal plant near the Edge’s home city of Plovdiv. In this project, they wrapped the trees in a popular public space in black plastic the night before Palm Sunday. At the celebration in front of one of the churches in the Old Town, they stretched some 40 meters of paper and left materials for everyone to draw. Some of this paper with the drawings is now on display in the Varna Gallery. In Mirazchiev’s words, it was “a referendum of a kind on people's attitudes at the time, an incredible document in which we see the different layers of society, and the artists themselves reflecting on the processes”.

A large part of the Opus Probect project from 1993 is also exhibited in Varna, although not in its original form. It was in the gallery of Plovdiv artists, where apples were scattered everywhere, displayed alongside large beds with red silk bedspreads. Fruits were also hanging from the ceiling. There were also plaster apples in the installation.

Paintings in the same format of all participants, which are not signed, can be seen in Varna.

Another famous action of The Edge is "The Apparent Breakfast" (1992). It was arranged on the pier in the resort town of Balchik as part of the Process – Space festival. “At that time supermarket shelves were nearly empty in Bulgaria and people would spend hours in queues for bread and milk. It was a critical study of poverty. A feast during a plague. We would set up a table with all sorts of goodies and drinks and have a bite," Mirazchiev recalls.

The group's latest work was the "Edge in Back" installation, with which they participates in the famous photography meetings in Old Plovdiv. After that, the formation broke up, as Kolyo Karamfilov and Dimitar Mitovski moved to Sofia, Albena Mihailova to Switzerland, Igor Budnikov to Canada and Pavel Albert to Spain.

"Everything we did was very sincere and you can see that energy, charge and honesty in the exhibition. We have it written in our charter that we love each other, want to get married, buy a yacht and vine and dine the whole world. We did group events and at most openings there were lavish banquets. There was an outreach to people, not a locked-in strict self-centeredness. Now that's gone and you can't do those kinds of things because society has changed and artists are self-centred, self-sufficient and isolated. That friendly spirit and openness, that attitude to the world is gone and there are no such groups as The Edge,” said Emil Mirazchiev.

Despite their idiosyncrasies, the Plovdiv artists in the group had no trouble exhibiting in galleries, and the whole city flocked to their shows. They were well liked, invited to many places and, he said, inspired respect. This energy was felt even by those in power. “We were independent and had freedom to express ourselves,” he added.

The group has had no activity in recent years, but Emil Mirazchiev has taken up the idea of creating a museum of the Edge ArtGroup in Plovdiv and working to make it more popular in the country.