23 - 25 Оctober 2020 - Martin Atanasov photobook launch and pop-up exhibition
ПУК! photobook platform launches "How To Forget Your Past Fast" by Atanasov. The book consists of collages of pop-folk singers and communist-era monuments, in which the author comments on Bulgaria’s seemingly endless transition to democracy, happening against the backdrop of its totalitarian past.
The book was created as a part of the project “ReForget Your Past” by Nikola Mihov, in which he invited more than 30 artists to transform a copy of his photobook “Forget Your Past” (Janet 45, 2012). In Atanasov’s interpretation The Buzludzha monument is transformed into a nightclub, one of the most emblematic pop-folk stars - Azis - replaces the soldier in the monument to the Soviet Army in Burgas, and a flashy white Mercedes follows a Bulgarian pop-folk diva inside the Pantheon to the Heroes in the Serbo-Bulgarian War.
The pop-up exhibition with collages from the book "How To Forget Your Past Fast" will take place between Friday (23 October) and Sunday (25 October).
"How To Forget Your Past Fast" is self-published as a limited, hand-made edition of 120 copies, with a preface by Petya Grueva. The book will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition.
Atanasov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1991. In 2010 he graduated in Printmaking from the National School of Fine Arts “Iliya Petrov”, Sofia. He completed his BA degree in Photography at the Film and Television School of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) in 2014. He works in the field of photography, drawing and photobook. His first book project Pray For Rain was published in collaboration with AkinaBooks, London, in 2014.
The event is organized in partnership with КО-ОП.
ПУК! would like to thank Petya Grueva, Aneta Vasileva and Irina Nedeva.
ПУК! is a photobook platform with a pop-up photobook store and library founded by Nikola Mihov, Tihomir Stoyanov and Rossen Kuzmanov. ПУК! organises photobook events, artist talks and exhibitions. Some of the artists who have taken part in previous ПУК! events are: Vanessa Winship, George Georgiou, Jean-Marie Donat and Trisha Ziff.