Hidden Games VII
Hidden Games VII - Size: 132 x 110 cm, Schmincke oils on canvas
2017, Anton Terziev
Photo credit: Vasil Tanev
Photo: © the artist
Nikolai Nedelchev collection
Публикувана в бр 21 - 06.2019 на сп АРТИЗАНИН
"Винаги съм бил на мнение, че поп културата и ежедневните неща около нас казват ужасно много за живота ни, за изборите, които правим, за последствията от тях. Също така актът на развяване на знамена винаги ми създавал дискомфорт – въобще изявата на другост, на гордост с това, че случайно си се родил някъде, че нещо общо може да ти принадлежи и да те дефинира самостоятелно."
Светослав Тодоров, журналист, писател
Anton Terziev’s “Hidden Games VII” offers a powerful commentary on the creeping influence of extremist ideologies and modern political propaganda. Dominated by an ominous, large-scale hand rendered in warm red-brown tones, the painting conveys a sense of looming control, while the intricately patterned background underscores the chaotic flow of media-driven brainwashing. This intense interplay of color and texture evokes a future dystopia in which barbaric nationalism and cynical manipulation threaten both individual freedom and moral values. As a visionary statement, “Hidden Games VII” warns of the dire consequences when critical thought succumbs to distorted ideologies, compelling the viewer to confront the unsettling realities of our current social and political climate.
Hidden Games VII -detail. Photo: © the artist
(salute to Maurizio Cattelan's work Ave Maria, 2007. Refference to these drawings also)
I've always thought that pop culture and the simple day to day affairs around us say so much about our life, about the choices we make, about the consequences they provoke. Also, the act of waving a flag that signifies a national difference, that a piece from the what is available to everybody, can be reserved only for you, has always been giving me a sense of anxiety. This exhibition puts an accent on both of those topics – the things that make us disconnect or connect to a different narrative than the one we're living in and the things that make us shiver. It encapsulates them in a single moment, in a single painting. Unplanned, the exhibition opened on the day when Bulgarian writer and dissident Georgi Markov was poisoned in London back in 1978. It's important to remember that art, entertainment and politics often gravitate around the same space. More often than we think.
Svetoslav Todorov, journalist, editor and part-time short story writer
photo: Stanislav Belovski, The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate , Hidden Games exhibition, 2017