Velizar Dimchev, a Plovdivian artist honors his grandfather, Petar Tolev.
Plovdiv Diaries: A concrete city jungle
During communism, buildings were considered to be equal. Also it’s furniture.
Plovdiv Diaries: A futurist in the Rhodope mountains
Dimitar creates sci-fi movies. His sculptures are autonomous works but they act as props in his movies. So, A rebar becomes a light sabre. And a Bulgarian traditional toy is converted to a work-out device. Other found objects got infused with sound devices and became sometimes nonsensical. (In a good way)
Plovdiv Diaries: A psychologist became an artist
Zdravko, a warm-hearted soul that showed his studio and took the time to explain me his artistic journey. He is a psychologist turned into an artist at a difficult stage in life.
Plovdiv Diaries: First impression
I’m working here on invitation of ContextAir, an artist-in-residence program supported by the Plovdiv municipality. I’m staying in a beautiful compound just outside the city and part of my daily routine now is reading about Bulgarian history and discovering the city. I’m documenting and collecting about what defines this city to me. In a later stage I create artworks with those materials.
Tehran.
I planned to work in Tehran for a project.
International politics got messy. News papers got crazy. Friends and professors asked me to cancel.
Then happened the sad incident with the Ukrainian airplane.
Lufthansa stopped service. They kindly rerouted me 4 (four!) Times. I arrived on the 22nd or January.
It took me a week to make sense of this place. Things are different when you see them with your own eyes. This is not the warzone from the newspapers. Tehran is a city of 14 million inhabitants. The people are in general smart (very high rate of University scholars, especially women), friendly and genuinely interested in newcomers.
A multicultural melting pot. A gasoline city with an odour of oil and gas. Surrounded by snow-white mountains. 2500 Years of culture are present.
I'm here to build a portrait of the city, with whatever I get my hands on. Let's do this. Let's build something beautiful for Tehran. :)
Shanghai dreams
In one hour my plane will bring me to Shanghai.
The closest I've been to China was Hong Kong. I'm curious how different it is.
I'm staying at 'Untitled space', a local residency program. Without having a concrete production plan, I'm happily forced to take the local culture as root of inspiration!
To be continued on this blog and YouTube!
Laser show
I threw a party.
I bought a laser.
I bought a mist machine.
I tested ithe gear with my sculptures afterwards. It rocks.
Conclusion: The final installation needs a light- and laser-show.
Space is coming close. :)
All set.
It took 3 weeks. I'm all set for the vernissage tomorrow. As my first project for an institution I had to break out-of-the-box and smashed a whopper of 2 cubic metres on the wall.
V-OCHO!
Radial
My plastic Pistons are becoming a radial engine!
Montevideo V8
The volume is getting closer to be a V8. 2 cubic metres though.
Wooden pistons
A lot of useful scraps here in the EAC museum in Montevideo.
All wood though. I adapt. It saves time and I don't see the use to model them and do a casting. The form in MDF speaks for itself.
Full museal
When abroad I used to think in function of being convenient. Works need to be easy to ship. Working for a museum here (EAC, Montevideo Uruguay) is another ball game.
No convenient think anymore. Let's go full museal!
Jailhouse Rock
After finish the sculptures in Buenos Aires, I moved to EAC, Montevideo Uruguay. This important contemporary art museum is my final stop for production.
I'll be creating a new best of sculpture, sound and rework the turbine created in Bs As.
This museum is housed in an old panoptical prison from the 1800's. Awesome, dark and edgy. Good to work!
Foaming up
Expandable foam is my partner in crime.
It saves on time and adds a lot of volume.
It's not cheap. It pays back in ease. And you find it everywhere. :)
3rd work
I thought I was making two sculptures here in Bs As.
Sometimes is crossing a few bricks on the street enough for flashing an idea.
3rd piece, here we come!
Mercado Libre
A couple days ago, I showed you the series of small speakers. It are tweeters. Tweeters don't have a low end.
The low end is important for that buzzin'-engine like sound.
Today, I was in the Subte (the Buenos Aires underground) and I got a call from Rafael, the project assistant. Mercado Libre, South America's eBay/Amazon helped me out. I just had to swap trains and in 20 minutes I had my 12" woofer.
Technology makes things a lot easier. :-)
Speakers Galore!
Cheap Silicone
Buenos Aires brought me to a trick we did as students to save money. It saves time. You find 'ferraterias' everywhere, as much as cornerstores.
You use cheap silicone for construction instead of industry-grade moulding silicone. The trade-off is less pulling strength and hardening up to 4 days.
The win is cutting away a lot of 'finding-out'-time :)
Pistons
Clay is easy to find in a city of 14 million people. It took me a couple hours for creating a wonderful new pistons. They're already in the mould.
