VOLUME is an project about painting as a space rather than painting as part of the space. It is a joint creative product of artists Kaliya Kalacheva and Gergana Tabakova who rethink the concepts of the avant-garde from the early 20th century about the relationship between architecture and geometric abstraction.

The installation was created over a period of 11 months, during which the two artists were in constant dialogue but respected each other’s personal understanding of the selection and use of materials and the compositional decisions. They tried to look for diverging approaches and bring them to a crossing point while building the common work.

The authors share that, “In the preparation and process of finding the forms with which to work, we looked at architectural examples, including the town of Shibam in Yemen, the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, the ancient city of Persepolis in Iran, Tarxien temple structures in Malta, as well as modern cities such as Tokyo and Chicago.”

In their search for the common ground between all these spaces, the two artists focused on the column, which, in addition to being a fundamental architectural element, is also a symbol deeply inscribed in collective memory. It is a connection between earth and heaven, represents a vertical line relating to the organization and orientation of the world, and is a symbol of the tree and the power of creation. In the Volume installation, multiple columns build up a rhythmic structure in space in which one can walk around and experience the sense of a space that is both integral and made up of discrete internal fragments.

 For the presentation of the installation the authors deepen their collaboration regarding the space. They reorganize what has been created so far to set a new configuration that is in compositional harmony with the space in which it is placed.

The project is implemented in partnership with Advertising Artists and with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture.

VOLUME at ReBonkers, Varna

July – August 2023