18 – 24.07.2022
Opening – 18.07 (Monday) – 17:30 – 21:00
curators: Teodora Konstantinova and Radoslav Mehandzhiyski
“Alexander Lazarkov’s exhibition demonstrates his intense drive to “invent” his own visual syntax, through which he can communicate with the viewers his perceptions of the great analogies that permeate man and the surrounding reality. In the last two years, his projects have presented metaphors reminiscent of one of the great scientific-philosophical truths of our time. Namely, that nature is self-replicating at scale. The structure of the atom seems to replicate the motion of planets around their star, in the same way entire galaxies gravitate around black holes. And that’s not just a coincidence. Processes in nature share a common architecture. Every isolated phenomenon stores within itself universal knowledge. It is our talent to seek and recognize this universality. And this is the essence of the current project. Alexander Lazarkov explores the similarity between physical processes and human emotionality, expanding the field of his extraordinarily diverse visual expression.”
Teodora Konstantinova and Radoslav Mehandzhiyski
Thermal source
Thermal source is site-specific installation constructed at the boiler room of the North building of the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. This room was one of the first to be built during the construction of the North building in 1917 because it is the lowest point of the building. Firstly, it was all filled up with coal boilers, used to heat up the water and turn it into steam, for the steam heating system. Later in 1945 it was reconstructed and the coal boilers were replaced with diesel fuel boilers that are still working to this day. My interest to this place began when I discovered that for over a century, this was the main room from which all the heat for the whole building was coming. Then I figured out that the heat is not only a physical phenomenon based on the receipt or emission of thermal energy. It is perhaps the thing that affects us the most in our everyday life, although we may not realize it.
Life on the planet has gone through many ice ages and terrible heat waves until today, when things are relatively balanced and life is possible for the greatest variety of organisms. I look to this subject because of my interest in something so global, my desire to analyze what am I seeing and the search for inner analog of the physical phenomenon with our emotional ones. The effect thermal environment has on us is often associated, with development or processness achieved because of temperature. The physical effects temperature has on the different materials and on live organisms I try to associate with emotional and social habits. And to visualize them with the installation objects in the space.
With the object at the beginning I depict the most direct and visible influence of temperature, environment on matter. The whole work is constructed entirely of metal, which is a good conductor, and thermometers, which reflect the thermodynamics of our communication and the way we feel for more passionate about something. With the other works I visualize processes that are familiar. A reference to germinating potatoes, through the metal objects covered with plants, or the crystallization of copper sulfate. Both of these processes mark a development brought through heat. Here we can draw the analogy with emotional processes and the things we feel inner heat from. The emotional heat is something connected with events or social contact, that we find pleasant and joyful, there is also metaphorical development of crystallization or germination.
Glowing objects are formed by heating the material and molding it on volcanic rocks. They visualize heat particles and their dispersion on the matter and the direct physical and metaphorical collision of energy and matter. Directly visualizing the way, we experience emotional heat (blossom).
Heat always gives birth to life, reaction, and leads to some development. Perceiving it as a physical law through thermodynamics, this is confirmed. The energy input is equal to the energy output plus the systems in which it is put into. This is an exact analogy of our emotional system. The heat received from things that are valuable and good to us, plus/minus the energy by extraneous factors and finally the giving off it to another person.
A. Lazarkov
