| Nedko Solakov
by Kirsten Swenson
"without means or ends"
We often associate electronic media – web-based art,
or video – with expressions of globalization by contemporary artists. In a way that
complements broadcasting and information distribution via cable television and the web,
artists have effectively used electronic media to generate de-localized communities that
offer immediacy and presence, and bypass the difficulties of formal exhibition procedures
(art is "transmitted" rather than installed). But Nedko Solakov, who is from
Sofia, Bulgaria, presents presence and absence, and distance and proximity, as concrete
phenomena in his installation at P.S.1, A (not so) White Cube. Here, Solakov has
literally inscribed his presence on the walls of the formalist exhibition space–the
"white cube." His media are the walls, a pencil, and a few worn toys. The
"means" of our advanced global world are noticeably absent. When entering A
(not so) White Cube, the viewer’s first impression is of a vacant room. In the
halls outside there are monitors and large -scale cibachrome photographs. Stepping into
Solakov’s cube is initially the experience of leaving exhibition space and
entering a small, and silent, and private chamber.
Solakov has transformed the existing white chamber through
subtle commentary and intervention. Faint and miniature pencil script convey playful
directives ("look down!") through text and tiny arrows, or the artist’s
commentary on the nuanced and accidental features of the white space ("a cute brush
stroke!"). His pencil may convert a tiny dent or imperfection in the surface of the
paint into an insect or spermatozoa. The voided exhibition space is in fact teeming with
life. Cracks and crevasses of the ageing ceiling are inhabited by small toys and animals,
and fragments of stories are scrawled underneath. Far from vacant, the space that Solakov
has left for viewers is crammed with details, and no visitor will notice them all. An
individual’s path through the room is both arbitrary and unique, and the experience
is mostly unguided. As such, the artist’s approach contradicts technologies which
gather, organize and disseminate information in as precise and targeted a manner possible.
The latter abstracts inf ormation from spatiality; Solakov’s bits of stories, jokes,
commands, are non-transferable and contingent on presence. The information Solakov imparts
is also useless – there is no "message" except inconsequential observations
and stories that defy any efficient, condensed approach to communication.
Solakov’s transformation of the "white cube"
looks like an analogy to any personalization of institutional space, in much the same way
its inhabitants might revise a jail cell or classroom with graffiti and drawings that
record the act of whiling away time. The activity denotes resistance, transformation, and
escape, as well as solidarity with others consigned to this space–gallery, cell or
class.
The soft and childlike voices of the countless small
inscriptions in Solakov’s room remind us that people are everywhere, inhabiting small
and unthought-of spaces and places. Solakov’s exhibit was for me an analogy for
presence, and the multiplicity and complexity of people and communities. It reminded me of
the fear that the means of globalization will edit the idiosyncracies and peculiarities of
many voices. |
