Showtime

Richard Bartle

Battery Steps 2021
Acrylic on Canvas
200cm x 136cm

Curated by Marcus Graf

Martian Tabakov | Richard Bartle | Sevda Semer | Kalina Dimitrova | Georgi Georgiev / Jorrras | Nina Kovacheva | Valentin Stefanoff | Elenka Nazarova

16.09 - 22.09.2022

Gallery Collect participates at Contemporary Istanbul 2022 with an experimental booth. Curated by Marcus Graf, SHOWTIME goes beyond the traditional exhibition manners at an art fair to respond to the high-speed of change at the fair. It also responds to the dynamism of Istanbul and the permanent flux of contemporary art.

Every hour, one artwork will be displayed on the outer main wall of the gallery’s booth in a stage-like manner. These 60 minutes are the showtime of the artwork, the time when it easily catches the attention of the art crowd. Afterwards, the piece goes back into the backstage-like space in the center of the booth. There in a salon-like exhibition design, the audience can experience numerous works by different artists of the gallery. SHOWTIME interconnects the act of presenting and hiding as well as focusing and diverting to propose alternative strategies of showing and producing art today.

Meet the artists

Martian Tabakov

Martian Tabakov ( b. 1992, Sofia, Bulgaria ) is a visual artist working mainly in the fields of sculpture, sculptural installation and drawing. He graduated from the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria Sculpture department – 2015 and Form and Movement 2017. He also specialized in Sculpture in the Royal Academy of Art in Antwerpen, Belgium 2013. The human figure is the major theme in his art, he engages with them as a universal form consisting of many organic forms and develops it to a point, where it loses most of its anthropomorphic characteristics.

Nina Kovacheva

Nina Kovacheva was born in Sofia in 1960. She lives and works in Paris. In 1985 she graduated from the National Academy of Arts, Sofia. Nina Kovacheva is a versatile artist. Her work goes beyond the confines of a single medium. She taps into the resources of video, photography and drawing, amongst others. Nina Kovashova's works are in many museums and private collections. Here are a few examples from the collections of her works: Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria / Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Etienne, France / European Investment Bank, Luxembourg.

Valentin Stefanoff

Valentin Stefanoff was born in 1959, Sofia. In 1985 Valentin Stefanoff graduated from The National Art Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria. He lives and works in Paris, France. Harmony and logic, aesthetics and mathematics are all united in the works of Valentin Stefanoff. His works are thought out and realized with sophisticated precision and respect for detail. It’s as if these are investigating the border between the creative and the other human talents while hinting at their mutual nostalgia.