REVIEW 2025 – WITH KIRIL VASILEV
- viktoriadraganova
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
The Journal of Social Vision’s end-of-year survey gathers the perspectives of colleagues, curators, and critics on the most important events and topics in art in 2025. Participants were invited to highlight standout exhibitions, projects, and figures; identify key international influences; note significant critical publications and media; and reflect on the disappointments that generated tensions within the cultural landscape.
We continue with Kiril Vasilev, lecturer in the history of modern European culture, head of the master's program "Arts and Contemporary Art", Department of "History and Theory of Culture", Faculty of Philosophy, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". In 2025, he curated Yavor Kostadinov's exhibition "Paths, Passages and Dwellings" at the Alma Mater Gallery of Sofia University, which offers the artist's personal fragmentary perspective on the Küçük Paris district in Plovdiv.
Key art events during the year in Bulgaria
Garo Keshishian "Construction Troops" , curator: Nadezhda Pavlova, Synthesis Gallery, 05.12.2024-15.02.2025
The subject is an exceptional find. Keshishian's photographs document institutional racism and the hidden exploitation of ethnic minorities in communist Bulgaria. Their greatest merit, however, is that they are more interested in the person than in the circumstances in which he is placed. Therefore, there is nothing activist or poster-like in them. Misery, absurdity, despondency, but also vitality, beauty and dignity.
"Painting with Wool and Silk. Flanders and France, 16th – 18th centuries, from the National Gallery collection", curator: Ioana Tavitian, National Gallery - Kvardrat 500, 12.03.2025 - 26.10.2025
A valuable segment of the National Gallery's collection is being shown for the first time. The use of textiles in contemporary art has changed the way we look at exhibitions like this. A very serious work of attribution and restoration that deserves admiration.
Dina Stoev "Chapter II", Cube Gallery - Toplocentrala, 03.07.-31.07.2025
An exhibition aimed at the catastrophes of the present. Convincing proof that art can be morally empathetic without being moralistic. Solidarity as a power of imagination.
"Vasil Zahariev. 130th Anniversary of the Artist's Birth", curator: Lyuben Domozetski, Sofia City Art Gallery, 24.09.–23.11.2025
An anniversary exhibition of a "classic" of Bulgarian art, which outgrows the usual format of such exhibitions. Zahariev's work is richly contextualized and woven into a multi-layered and well-structured historical narrative, which makes visible the peculiar choices and contradictions within it.
Ivaylo Avramov "Possibilities of Compassion", Cube Gallery - Toplocentrala, 26.09.-16.10.2025
An example of how, with minimal means, an interior space can be mastered to unleash the play of repetition, difference, and opposition. The result is a powerful narrative in which there is nothing narrative.
Peter Tsanev "Dichotom", Rayko Aleksiev Gallery, Union of Bulgarian Artists, 17.10.2025-30.10.2025
I don't know of any other Bulgarian artist who creates art to problematize with such consistency and rigor the conditions for the possibility of this same art. And without relying on discourse, but only on objects and images.
Key international events
The most significant international event in the field of visual arts is the absence of an event. Against the backdrop of the imperialist war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and the authoritarian turn in US governance, art seems to remain in the last century. The title of the curatorial exhibition at the upcoming Venice Biennale is indicative in this regard. Over a million people have already been killed in the fields of Ukraine, and the global art world is in a "minor key." Perhaps after another million victims it will rediscover a-tonality. World War I gave birth to DADA. Are artists today capable of such a radical response not just to the catastrophe of the present (superficial, poster reactions are superfluous), but to the socio-cultural, economic, and political order that led to this catastrophe?
Book, text or media platform of particular importance in 2025
The emergence of the publishing platform "Temporary Publishing" and their translation series "Critical Translations", in which Igor Zabel's "Haven't We Had Enough? Ideas on Contemporary Art" was published. Also Peter Tsanev 's book "Transtemporal Aesthetics", which was published literally a few days ago. Both books offer theses and perspectives for understanding art today, which go beyond the level of the usual discussions on the topic in our country.
The biggest disappointment of the year
The National Academy of Arts deprived its students of the opportunity to be trained and communicate with one of the most significant contemporary Bulgarian artists – Pravdoliub Ivanov. It turned out that there were not enough hours for him. There is no and cannot be a reasonable explanation for this act. It seems that regressive processes are taking place at the National Academy of Arts, of which we have not been clearly aware until now. In the future, they will have serious consequences for the entire field of art in our country.
Major themes in 2025 and what will drive us in 2026
The return of autocrats and the loss of trust in liberal democracy were the central themes of the past year. The same themes will be defining for the next year/years. They are intertwined in a specific way with the topics of the impact of climate change and the introduction of the so-called "artificial intelligence" into mass use. Are these topics important and defining for our art? It seems that they are not that important.
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