Еxhibition “Gravity Works Only When You Look Down”

10.10.2019 – 3.11.2019, Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, 15 "Yanko Sakazov" Blvd.

Rudi Ninov creates paintings on canvas and in three-dimensional forms. It is difficult to make distinction between a painting and a sculpture in his works. Also, this approach is close to the methods of training employed at most contemporary art universities worldwide, such as the Goldsmiths from where the artist graduated in 2015. His forthcoming exhibition “Gravity Works Only When You Look Down” is the first to include exclusively objects. Thus, it fits meaningfully into the space of Vaska Emanouilova Gallery which houses, beside the “Meeting Point” programme for young artists, a collection of sculptures by Vaska Emanouilova who lived between 1905 and 1985. Part of Rudi Ninov’s work on the forthcoming exhibition is to rearrange the permanent exposition of Vaska Emanouilova’s artworks so as to transform the gallery into a space of dialogue between the two artists whose creative work lies a whole century apart in time.

The process of creating, the rhythm and movement are important elements in Rudy Nino’v art. While looking at his new works, one gets the impression, not incidentally, that they are frozen in a moment of their movement, while “rising up” or “falling down”. One feels tempted to attribute to them the features of live biological forms even though they are in fact abstract ones. These forms do not resemble anything that exists, and yet they suggest the idea of concreteness and spark a desire to read or even narrate them. No matter how these images were formed and what brought them into Rudi Ninov’s mind, an observant viewer will normally recognize the experience encoded in them. We can intuitively relate his works to something we know. Or, perhaps, they rather lead our conscience to a condition already familiar to us. Something, which has already happened to us and which now returns in a different form.

These images, along with the work with objects and space, are associated with the title of the exhibition “Gravity Works Only When You Look Down”. As we have seen in his previous projects, Rudi Ninov places particular importance also on text. He experiments with the titles of his works which, quite like the images, ring highly poetical and mysterious. In the frame of a title, he seems to be able to tell a story intriguing in its logical incompleteness.

The event is supported by the Culture Program of Sofia Municipality