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Photography from Nikola Mihov
Photography Exhibition at the FotoQuartier
Schlössl Kino, Margaretenstraße 127, 1050 Vienna
Opening: Thursday, April 23rd, 2015, 7pm
Opening hours: April 27th to May 07th
Monday to Thursday: 4pm - 6pm
Admission free.
Forget Your Past is a photography project by Nikola Mihov that traces the fate the most important communist-era monuments in Bulgaria. Constructed at enormous expense as expressions of national pride, today most of them are looted and neglected. Whether they commemorate the feats of the Soviet Army or the April Uprising against the Ottoman rule, they all share a common fate – to be silent symbols of the forgotten past.
After the political changes in 1989, a number of iconic monuments have been dismantled, but more than a hundred of them remained standing. Today, no official institution today dispose with information about their exact number and many archives relevant to their history have been destroyed.
Nikola Mihov began his research in 2009, travelling through the country, talking to people, interviewing sculptors and architects, digging through archives and flea markets, and of course, taking photographs. The exhibition at FotoQuartier Wien will be including some old photos, postcards, propaganda materials shown for the first time.
Until now, the project has been shown at London Photomonth, the Month of the Photography in Bratislava, Sofia Architecture Week, The Red House – Centre for Culture and Debate in Sofia, The Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Berlin and in the frame of the exhibitions: Socialism’s Material Residue at WM Gallery in Amsterdam and the traveling exhibition Europe. South-East – Recorded Memories organized by The Museum for Photography in Braunschweig, Germany.
The homonymous book "Forget Your Past" published by Janet 45 in 2012 was selected among the best photobooks of the year by The British Journal of Photography. The book was awarded with the prize of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists and was nominated for Deutsche Börse Photography prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the world of photography. In 2014 Nikola Mihov gave a copy of the book to some of the leading Bulgarian contemporary artists and ask them to transform it into their own artwork. A selection of the unique reworked books will be presented for the first time during the exhibition.
This exhibition takes place in cooperation with the Bulgarian Cultural Institute "Haus Wittgenstein". On April 24th, 6pm, an artist talk with Nikola Mihov will be held at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute “Haus Wittgenstein”, Vienna.
The exhibition features previously unseen archive footage of a military ceremony at the Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party on mount Buzludja shot in 1981. These films have been found 2013 in the State Security Files Commission in Sofia by journalist Diana Ivanova, as part of the common research project with curator Vessela Nozharova "The Unknown Files of Bulgarian State Security". The project includes screenings and talks in Bulgaria and abroad.
Nikola Mihov was born in Sofia in 1982. In 2002 he moved to Paris, where he became interested in photography. Since 2008 he has taken part in numerous international exhibitions and festivals. He was nominated for the Essl Art Award (2011), and the award of Salon de la Photo in Paris (2012). Nikola is co-founder of the virtual museum of the socialist era graphic design in Bulgaria (www.socmus.com) and the platform for contemporary Bulgarian photography Bulgarian Photography Now (www.bulgarianphotographynow.com).