Picture of a Man

One underwear, a pair of eyes, an eight-wing wardrobe, dozens of layers of paint — together they can be read as an image of a man. The underwear carry the biological traces of having been worn for one hundred consecutive days; the eyes, reproduced from an iconic film still, gradually start to shed tears; the wardrobe, like a willful stage set, autonomously slams its doors after having opened them for the acts of life; the oil paint, accumulated on the canvas over four years, seals everyday life into the step-shaped lines of a diary.

Video, photography, performance and painting are the media through which Vlado Mitrev gathers the visual traces of time — fleeting moments, monotonous days, and the small and large epochs.

The exhibition at Toplocentrala is Vlado Mitrev’s first solo presentation in Bulgaria. Since the mid-1990s he has lived in Berlin, and later in Basel. He has been nominated for numerous awards, including the prestigious Golden Cube at the Fridericianum Kassel, and has been presented in institutions such as Kunsthalle Wien, Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow, Palazzo Reale Milano, Eesti Kunstimuuseum Tallinn, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin, Benaki Museum Athens, among others. Cube Gallery — Toplocentrala presents works from the last decade. Created especially for the exhibition is the video interview How to Talk About Art — an ironic commentary on the works on view, which simultaneously functions as a lesson for visiting art exhibitions and institutions.

Vladimir Mitrev (1972) studied Fine Art at the Berlin University of the Arts and at Wimbledon School of Art in London. In 2004 he continued his studies at Carnegie Mellon University, College of Art, in Pittsburgh (USA), while simultaneously being a master student at the Berlin University of the Arts.

He lives and works in Basel and in Berlin.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Department of the City of Basel.