Odd connections between distant themes, gigantic steps and leaps in space, assumptions, scientific facts and artistic manipulations are awaiting the spectators of Dimitar Solakov’s exhibition 4 Projects, work on which has been ongoing for two years now. The exhibition offers a diversity of images incompatible at first sight. Such is the image of transformation from plankton to oil. Also, a fully realizable possibility for becoming wealthy overnight, a new audio work, and a self-portrait with a look toward the Andromeda Galaxy. The distance between the themes of the four projects is as enormous as the one between the space objects involved.

Furthermore, dedicated additional references give the works the appearance of branching subjects for discussion. The artist has implied diverging meanings to the images and their names. Home Address, for example, is about sending information into space, and the work with the healthy-sounding title Getting Back in Shape is in fact relevant to ecology issues. Or to strictly artistic problems with form – this is yet another discernible argumentation, should we take a closer look at the 4 Projects, should we perceive them as a composition of raining or hailing forms, landscapes and orientation instructions to the landscapes. Even the image of the idea of a far-away journey itself is here.

In the exhibition, the spectator keeps stumbling into tactics designed to complicate the notion of differences in scale and inter-object dimensions, not simply literally at that – travelling the world seems to be not quite so interesting to contemporary artists any more. Apparently, Dimitar Solakov simulates the feeling of being comfortable and no stranger not merely in the world, but in the Universe. Why not pretend one goes diamond hunting? Or, why not be able to take a selfie by looking at oneself not from the side, but directly from space.

Daniela Radeva

Dimitar Solakov (b. 1987) graduated from the New Bulgarian University in Sofia from the Department of Photography. The artist is mainly using the media of photography and video, although recently he has begun to include drawings in his installations. In his work he is investigating various types of connections – between nature, urbanization and the human placed in the middle; between the past and its interpretations in the present. The works could be either very personal or completely detached from the position of the distanced observer. His works have been shown in numerous international shows some of which are: “What is Left”, (Veinna, Austria), “The Pleasures of Love” (Belgrade, Serbia), “The Power of Doubt” Times Museum (Guangzhou, China), Bienal de Cuenca XI (Cuenca, Ecuador), PHotoEspaña (Madrid, Spain), GRID Photographie Biennal (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, “Ritual Of The Habitual” (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), Sofia Contemporary (Sofia, Bulgaria), “All I Can Do Is Art” (Prague, Czech Republic), 56th October Salon (Belgrade, Serbia), “What Is Left?” (Vienna, Austria). He has had one-person shows in: Vivacom ArtHall (Sofia, Bulgaria), Incubate (Tilburg, The Netherlands), Sariev Contemporary (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), 0gms (Sofia). His first solo exhibition Youth was arranged at Vaska Emanouilova Gallery too, in 2010. – http://www.dimitarsolakov.com/Dimitar_Solakov.html