site.btaNational Gallery Presents Exhibition Dedicated to Labour in Socialism Art

An exhibition focusing on one of the most important themes in the art of socialism, labour, will be presented at the  Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia. The exhibition can be viewed ween June 20 and November 24, the National Gallery said.

The exhibition features art by Iliya Petrov, Dechko Uzunov, Stoyan Sotirov, Nikola Tanev, Stoyan Venev, Ekaterina Savova-Nenova, Alexander Poplilov. "In addition to their high artistic value, some of the works are authentic documents for one of the most controversial and dramatic periods of Bulgaria's political history. Such is Nikola Tanev's graphic series from the construction of the Lovech-Troyan railway line, from the Kutsian mine and the Republika mine in Pernik, as well as graphic works by Pavel Valkov, reflecting the construction of the Georgi Dimitrov mausoleum in Sofia," the organizers said.

The team recalls that after the end of the Second World War, a totalitarian model of government led by the Communist Party was established in Bulgaria. The socialist worldview makes labour one of its main ideologues, turns it into a sustainable narrative and a tool for imposing one's own power. It is labour that is the tool, the means for transforming society and creating the new man. Social demiurges turn this fundamental, age-old need and necessity of human beings to work to secure their livelihood into a glorified, almost sacral activity, standing on the highest pedestal of socialist virtues, the organizers added.