by Art Affairs and Documents Foundation
Sasho Stoitsov
Baths of philosophy, 2021
sculpture
foam board, tape, foil
“The not permeability of the thick brick walls and the fragile material of the foam board, and the power of the thought” - Sasho Stoitsov
The walls, streets, arcs and tombs of Serdica make the past seem grand and monolithic, forever entrenched in our, as well as in any future present. In his artistic interpretation and direct replicas of elements of the Largo, however, Sasho Stoitsov substitutes stone for foam board and adhesive tape, the heavy for the light, the everlasting for the ephemeral. The Largo is only a few hundred meters away from one of Sofia’s main mineral springs, as well as from the building of the Central mineral bath, which now substitutes for a museum, preserving the monolithic past of the capital. The paradox in this substitution of essence, as well as the reversal of temporal modes (transforming the everlasting into ephemeral) pose a number of questions about the past, its historical interpretation, and how we deal with it today.
Sasho Stoitsov was born in 1952 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Since 1998, he has lived and worked in Sofia and New York. Graduated from NHG Sofia, Bulgaria, 1971. 1999-2000 studied Digital Media Arts Technology at TCI, NYC. From 1980 he began to realize solo exhibitions: Program Series, Rakovski Gallery 108, Sofia (1980); Signs, HO Gallery, Berlin, Germany (1996); "Saxophonist in the Bathroom", Ata-Rai Gallery, Sofia (1996); "Eastern Miniatures", NHG, Sofia (1996); "Paper Intervention", American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad (1997); "Painting in Nature Closest to Not Making Art", Sofia City Art Gallery, Sofia (1997); "Mosholu PKWY", Gallery, Match Book, New York, USA (2003); 2006 "Waterfall", SGHG, Apollonia, Sozopol (2006); "Fly" Arosita Gallery, Sofia (2008); 2011 "Hole in the Parquet", Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv (2011); 2006 "BREAKTHROUGH", NHG (2016) Curator: Maria Vasileva. "Listen to us-Artistic intelligence". Plovdiv, 2019. Open Art Files: Notes and footnotes // Open Art Files: Notes and footnotes, 2019. Kapana Gallery, Plovdiv. Curator Vera Mlechevska Festivals: "Process-Space", Balchik (1992); "Apollonia Arts Festival", Sozopol. Curator Maria Vasileva (2007); INTERNATIONAL GLASS FESTIVAL - 2012, 2014, Sofia. Since 2014 Sasho Stoitsov is also the organizer of the art events for contemporary art in Blagoevgrad: Spring Festival for Contemporary Art, STAYS, Symposium on Painting.