The images of the Other and the Balkans in the Works of Artists from Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia

15 September – 26 November 2017.

Opening: 14 September, Thursday, 6.00 p.m.

This is the first project of its kind, initiated by a Bulgarian institution, aiming at presenting a visual tale, using works by some of the most prominent artists from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Serbia, who worked in the second part of the 19^th and the first half of the 20^th century. Focused on the subject of the specific development of art on the Balkans in the shadow of the Orient, the research team for this exhibition offers to the visitors an encounter with artists and works – cornerstones in the development of art in these four Balkan countries.

On the Balkans, westerners are most often charmed by the rays of Southern sun, the immaculate nature and – what is most important – by the people, their inner lives, true emotions, even their everyday lives, genuine and close to the natural, removed from modernization.

With the exclusive cooperation of the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutzos Museum (Greece), the National Museum of Art of Romania, the Gallery of Matica Srpska, the Municipal Museum of Bucharest and the regional galleries in Bulgaria, the Sofia City Art Gallery presents works by some of the most prominent artists of Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Serbia. At the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century, the works of these artists, who established the foundations of the “new” secular paining in their countries, reveal an idyllic image of the native and everyday life, the close difference otherness of different cultures in the community and the remote otherness of the Orient, characterized at the same time by civilizational disturbance and exotic nature.