Collector’s Cabinet

Cryptid Art Space presents

Collector’s Cabinet:
Exhibition by Veselin Damyanov – Ves, Trayana Panayotova and Yavor Boyanov

8 – 15 April 2023

“Collector’s Cabinet” is a curatorial project by sculptor Nikolay Marinov, bringing together 105 visual artists around the idea of transforming a cabinet measuring 135 x 197 x 40 cm.        

Each participant in the project “leaves a mark” in their own unique style on one of the cabinet’s 105 drawers.

From 8 to 15 April at Cryptid Art Space (1 Dimitar Traikovich St., Sofia) you will be able to see live the drawers of three artists: Veselin Damyanov – Ves, Trayana Panayotova and Yavor Boyanov.

About the project:

“The idea for the project ‘Collector’s Cabinet’ emerged spontaneously and was inspired by the physical cabinet. On a winter afternoon I walked out in front of my studio and the cabinet was ‘waiting’ for me at the door. It stood there, covered in dust and of no use to anyone. A group of workers had taken it out of a room that was being renovated, and there was no longer any place for the cabinet or the other things in it.

I looked at it and thought, ‘Where is this treasure going, after years of loyal service?’ I immediately wanted it to be mine; I couldn’t bear to watch it being dismantled and destroyed so quickly… I made repeated attempts to negotiate with them until I convinced them, and soon the cabinet ended up in my studio. I spent the whole afternoon looking at it – breathing in its smell, absorbing its beauty, so practical, so well balanced, and yet no longer wanted. How could I make something so functional receive the recognition and beauty it deserves?

That was when it came to me: this cabinet could serve again and become a home for so much beauty, and so many artists would see what I see and believe. I wanted to prove that this was only a pretext for promoting and for our ability to give true value to everything, not simply to showcase the recycling of an old object.

That was how the idea began to take shape in my mind: to initiate a curatorial project with 105 artists creating on the drawer parts of the cabinet. Gradually, the idea evolved. At first I thought about how this cabinet would become the “canvas” for dozens of artists, all different in style, yet united by the idea. Then I began to think about the direction of the project’s realization, how we would gradually try to make it public and how it could be useful to the participants and to society.” /Nikolay Marinov/