++++ Artists used to receive money for painting the portraits of people. But what does that have to do with contemporary art which, not least of all, has taken on the task of questioning traditional structures. The artist, Luchezar Boyadjiev, who was born in Sofia in 1957, turned things around and paid his candidates for portraits to make themselves available for his video project for Manifesta. He sought them by means of advertisements in the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Bild-Zeitung because in this way he thought that he could get a representative cross-section of the population living in this city.
The Bulgarian conceptual artist stepped into the public arena with effective advertising. "I will pay you for making a portrait of you. Just let me know what you want to talk about with me and pose for me for half an hour. Limited offer! Twenty candidates have the opportunity of seeing their portraits in an art exhibition and also of being seen there by all their friends and neighbours!"
So, for one hundred euros in cash models made themselves available to the camera and met with Luchezar Boyadjiev who has already exhibited in the Migros Museum in Zurich and in Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. The question here is who provided a service to whom: the artist as payer of money to the candidates, or the candidates as the necessary subjects for the artist’s project?
With his concept, the artist turned another common exhibition method around. Whereas many Manifesta artists have situated themselves in the urban space or involved themselves with their own situation in a strange city in their works, Luchezar Boyadjiev instead draws the city into the exhibition.
In principle, Boyadjiev allowed his guests themselves to determine what they wanted to talk about. Some, for instance, say what they want to do with the money they have earned. But their fellow humans who have a lot of experience with the media and talk-shows do not think it is always quite so glamorous, although they nevertheless think it is worth communicating what moves them or doesn't move them. Boyadjiev's work unfortunately has not become a really interesting social study, but it is rather pertinent all the same. hoh
Frankensteiner Hof, Große Rittergasse 103.