site.btaSofia Exhibition Juxtaposes Design and Contemporary Art

The exhibition Design versus Contemporary Art will be held at the Doza Gallery in Sofia between April 7 and 12. Using colour, technology (LED lighting, kinetics) and painting, the show explores the fragile balance between the pragmatic and the conceptual, between aesthetic utility and aesthetic autonomy, without seeking conflict, curator Desislava Zafirova says.

It is a project of the artistic tandem YO\KO+INA (Yonko Vasilev and Ina Vasileva) which employs the strategies of contemporary art to comment on the functionality of design – and vice versa: it uses the formal language of design to pose questions typical of contemporary art.

Since Yonko's passing in 2023, the project continues to live on through the shared legacy of the tandem's artistic journey. In this sense, the exhibition is not only an exploration of the boundary between design and contemporary art, but also an act of dedication – to partnership, to a shared search, to the unfinished dialogue between two like-minded creators, Zafirova says.