From March 13 to May 10, 2025, the public is invited to explore Pravdoliub Ivanov’s latest solo exhibition, The Truth about the Truth, presented by Sarieva @ DOT Sofia. This exhibition offers a key perspective into the artist’s body of work, arriving at a timely moment to showcase important yet previously unseen pieces created in Bulgaria between 1998 and 2024.The Truth about the Truth also highlights a subtler dimension of art — the freedom of interpretation and the fluidity of meaning over time, inviting viewers to engage with the evolving truths that emerge through visual expression.
Hello, Pravdoliub! We’re meeting on the occasion of your solo exhibition “The Truth about the Truth.” What is the context behind it?
The idea for the exhibition came from two shared intentions between myself and Sarieva Gallery. First, we wanted to present works that have been exhibited internationally but have never been shown here in Bulgaria. Second — and this was more of a personal motivation — I was curious to revisit these pieces and reflect on how their interpretations may have evolved over time, especially the older ones. In that sense, the exhibition also takes on a retrospective character.
Are there absolute truths in art, or are we always speaking about subjective meaning?
Picasso once said that art is a lie that tells the truth. I believe that the kind of “truth” visual art engages with is more layered than the factual truths we encounter in everyday life. Art rearranges the world — it inverts, adds, distorts — and in doing so, it generates its own kind of facts. That’s why we call them artifacts.
Can visual language be a neutral mediator between truth and the viewer?
Visual language doesn’t aim to reflect truth — it seeks to create it.
Each work seems like a fragment of your life and civic stance. Is there one you feel most connected to?
Actually, I’d say it’s the other way around — my life and civic positions are fragments of my works. The works themselves are more about engaging with the visual and exploring its layered meanings. That’s where the essence lies, I think.
As soon as we enter the space, our eyes are drawn to the tangle of ribbons. What’s the story behind Winners and Losers, and how did you come across such a rare material?
I stumbled upon a man selling rolls of these silk ribbons — the kind used for military decorations and medals. They were quite rare and valuable. The moment I realized what these long ribbons were, the concept for the piece came together almost instantly. After some intense bargaining — they were expensive — I bought them and the work was born.
Another large-scale piece in the exhibition is Vehicles Dream — photographs of dozens of faces, which only on closer look are revealed to be people asleep in “the city that never sleeps.” Do you see 1990s New York as a miniature version of today’s world?
The installation includes 100 selected photographs, but to get to those, I took around 500. New York is an extraordinary place — vibrant and intense — but what struck me most was its human quality. Walking through it felt like encountering a living, breathing person. That was back in 1989, and I’m sure it’s changed a lot since then. But like every great metropolis, it still reflects the world in miniature — complex, layered, and alive.
Can art awaken society from its social stupor?
That’s hard for me to say — and honestly, I don’t believe it can, at least not directly. Even Delacroix’s iconic Liberty Leading the People was painted after the Second French Revolution of 1830; it didn’t cause it. Similarly, Guernica didn’t prevent Mariupol or Gaza. Art can provoke, reflect, and challenge — but it doesn’t necessarily stop history from repeating itself.
What was the most interesting interpretation you heard at the opening?
Irina Batkova shared a very insightful thought about the temporal “rupture” created by the photographs in Vehicles Dream (1998). She referenced Walter Benjamin’s idea that every portrait photograph contains the time and place of its making — in this case, a moment now distant from the present exhibition context in 2025. At the same time, the installation is physically grounded in the “now,” thanks to the heavy metal wheels on which the prints rest.
It might sound abstract to some, but for me, it was a meaningful and unexpected exchange — the kind of reflection we were hoping this exhibition would provoke.
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Pravdoliub Ivanov's exhibition "The Truth About the Truth" can be seen at Sarieva / Gallery @ DOT Sofia between March 13 and May 10. Free entrance.
📍 Sofia, ul. "Bratya Miladinovi" 46, DOT Sofia
