Winter sale
Kamen Stoyanov's artistic practice finds parallel between physical movement and process, and ideas of historical, social land cultural change. The artist performs - in actions or objects - with the same care in streets, fields, and art spaces, drawing on the accidental and ubiquitous readymade. Inevitably, high and low culture mix in Stoyanov forms; his work is just as likely to consist of making his native Bulgarian yoghurt as neon sculpture. From here, he inserts himself into dialogues of power, progress, and geopolitics, without abandoning the intimate that surrounds his ideas.
Stoyanov's recent solo presentations include Restless at Dass Weisse Haus Vienna, Will I be happy at Inda Galeria Budapest, as well as Kunstverein Salzburg, Mumok Vienna. He participated in the Biennale of Sydney, Aichi Triennale, Manifesta 7, and exhibitions at Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, MAK Center for Art and Architecture Los Angeles, Center for Contemporary Art Plovdiv, Das Weisse Haus Vienna, Rotor Graz, Transmediale Berlin, Sofia Contemporary, and Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Kamen Stoyanov's Time for Sale measures out periods of transition - marking out the years since the watershed Berlin Wall fall in 1989, on an arbitrary scale and towards an arbitrary goal - and offers them as souvenirs. Each moment, represented by a baseball cap, takes a step away from a (red) past and towards a (blue) future - though it is unclear what happens at the edges of the colour spectrum.
The work reflects the daily demonstrations in Sofia going on for more than three months now, and the impossibility to achive a political change. The performance by Kamen Stoyanov enhances this political gesture into an absurd hypertrophic statement.
An inflatable boat leaves white wakes on the sea surface. By looking at the pattern the wakes create, it becomes clear that the boat is trying to write the word ‘impossible’
Tomato Products is a project reflecting different layers of the artistic production and the transformation of forms and ideas from the digital/the virtual back to the real. By using the garden of a historically significant building, like MAK Schindlers House there are several points which are considered: the space of the house is an artist‘s studio, living space and a museum-house at the same time. In a way by taking the role of a vegetable producer the artist takes this into account and makes a clear statement. The project could be seen as a statement in a time where everybody found in the field of the digital the possibility to realize in a perverse way Joseph Boys idea of the creativity. Stoyanov has exhibit a installation including different objects and an instructional video on how to grow tomatoes and prepare his signature tomato soup. In a project that references both Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, the soup is canned, given a logo and put on display. In the space one hear him singing a song reflecting his working expirience.