Sofia
21.01.2008 - 01.02.2008




The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the National Association “Academy of Photography”.

Belle Époque –it came to post-liberation Bulgaria as well, only, it seems, with a little delay. Instead of coming before World War I it arrived sometime between the two wars: balls, jours, vogues, outings in the mountain, picnics on the grass, flirting, sparkling women’s laughter, provocative postures, gentlemanly gestures, bicolor shoes, automobiles with folded tops… And all this existing as if only to be fixed in a photograph (in squid colors), but what is most titillating was the hum – the buzzing sound of airplanes in the blue skies.The still infant aviation and photography developing in full vigor are the durable images of “the good times” encouraged by the new technologies. They keep up the lifestyle of the times by balancing two views: one directed upwards– to dreams and the other turning backwards – to memories; they sustain the era with two nostalgias – one for the unattainable and the other - for the irrevocable. At first sight Georgi Georgiev was a boring legal advisor for the Bulgarian Bank of Agriculture. But look again. His youth was dedicated to flying planes (he even taught Theory of Flying). Since then, and all through his life, his real pursuit was where professionalism and passion become partners - photography . He became one of the most notable names in the Bulgarian history of photography and his popularity expanded even further as he won prizes throughout post-war Europe– Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Milan…Naturally, Belle Époque came to an end and the two grim ideologies of the XX century– fascism and communism, did not let anyone follow freely their own personal and artistic views. The year 1956 – the last year in Georgi Georgiev’s life, when „foundations were laid” and socialist realism was obligatory, found him writing a piece titled “Introduction to the Realistic Art of Photography”. It is doubtful that anyone today could be interested in the unfinished three-volume work, but what is certain is that his photographs of the past „good times” have the power, even if for a glimpse of time, to make him an emanation of the present. They are not concerned with evidence, and still less with documentation – Georgi Georgiev captured, maybe with the greatest focus in Bulgarian photography, the visual matrices of Pictorialism, Neoromanticism, Symbolism, Mysticism, Eroticism, etc., which transform the fragments of the trivial into figures of the “Belle Époque” lifestyle. As a matter of fact life and style could not have existed before as parts of the same concept.EIBANK Gallery owes the pleasure to display this exhibition to the Bulgarian Academy of Photography. The Gallery is also grateful to the chairman of the Academy, Mr Yavor Popov.

Georgi Lozanov

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EIBANK Gallery
2, Slavyanska str.
Sofia
Bulgaria
TEL : +3592 93 99 280
skuymjievahq.eibank.bg
gallery.eibank.bg