Gold Is Temporary Death Is Forever

oil on canvas. Size: 100 x 80 cm, Anton Terziev, 2020-2021

Photo: © the artist
Courtesy the artist

Title credit: Svetoslav Todorov - journalist, editor and writer
Collaborating since 2019

Part of No Time For Losers series of drawings, photogprahy, object and paintings (2019-)

Partly inspired by the great Nicolas Winding Refn's Too Old To Die Young (2019) cinematic color palette, the memento mori macabre imagery and the 80s Miami retro neon aestetics

Last shown at RED exhibition, Arosita Gallery, 9-21.01.2022, curated by J Pank

Gold Is Temporary Death Is Forever - detail. Photo: © the artist

In the series No Time for Losers I examine just that – what it takes from you, what and whom you pay, who constructs the content of success as a symbol and metaphor, what is its shelf life? I do it through the well-known moment of triumph, mandatory for sport photographers. A freeze-frame, in which I comment on the role interrelations between the award, the awardee and the award presenter.

I hit the brakes on the rat race for quick, immediate, instagrammable success. This concept is like a tomb. A remarkable pantheon, which you furnish meticulously with awards, trophies in your CV and what not, to the last day of your life.

Whoever wants to be a „relevant participant in the processes“ knows that things like vulnerability, exposedness and sensitivity smell of failure, they don’t make you competitive on the market. Like in sports, whose direct aesthetics I borrow for my series.

From an early age, you have to run in the right lane or track. Lest you compete on top level but outside of the field, or even worse – out of the range of the cameras reporting the game from the pitch.