PLOVDIV, Bulgaria

"ARS EX NATIO. MADE IN BG", the 4th Annual exhibition of the Soros
Center for the Arts - Sofia opened on May 16, 1997 in the Old Town of
Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Curated by Iaroslava Boubnova and Maria Vassileva,
curators from the independent Institute of Contemporary Art - Sofia, the
exhibition shows site-specific installations, video projections, urban
environmental projects, various object works by 32 artists of different
generations and media. The venues for exhibiting these are the yards,
the basements and the interiors of numerous early-19th century houses in
the specific style of the National Revival period and the street spaces
in-between them which form the Old Town of Plovdiv. Plovdiv itself being
established in the 4th c. BC by Philip, Alexander the Great's father,
under the name of Philipopolis. Among the artists in the show are the
internationally known names of Nedko Solakov, Luchezar Boyadjiev and
Pravdoliub Ivanov, the non-conventional art movement in BG initiators
Lyuben Kostov and Kiril Prashkov, the very young and very promising
Tania Abadjieva, Nadia Genova, Kalin Serapionov and Rassim Kristev and
Milcho Andreev.

"ARS EX NATIO. MADE IN BG" is meant to interfere in the currently
relevant in Eastern Europe art debate about the national characteristics
of contemporary (Bulgarian) art. In the title of the show "Art of the
People", in the language of the first cultural assimilators - the
Romans, is supplemented with "Made in Bulgaria" - the stamped clich