Ivan Gazdov’s Synthetic Graphicatures – 9-20.01.2023

Ivan Gazdov’s Synthetic Graphicatures

from 9 th to 20.01.2023

In the new graphicature spiral, the synthetic graphicature, the personal imperative of Ivan Gazdov: “The whole work – only by the author” is fulfilled radically. What is seen here, he emphasizes, cannot be found in nature. People and dogs, bodies, faces and leaves are not people, dogs, bodies, faces and leaves.
In synthetic graphicature, the image denies its name, it is not realistic: it acquires a new form, raising the power of suggestion to a new degree. Gazdov’s synthetic graphicature images are a conceptual and aesthetic rebus in the key of the pipe. Magritte’s pipe, of course.
What we see here is purely personal graphic, exhibiting a relentlessly tight, concise, clean aesthetic. The details in the compositions are less and less, but the synthesis is more and more powerful. The logic of the author tends to collapse to the black spot. But Gazdov will not go there. There are two opposing factors: freedom and curiosity. Total concentration, shrinking to a point, removes the limits of freedom. And he needs them. So that he can freely step over them, driven by his frantic curiosity about the uniqueness of people and things. Collapse is impossible.
With Gazdov, what is important is not what is drawn, but what is emanated. The image is a lure for looking into the enigma, for entering the enigma of being: knowing it, which makes it ever more mysterious, ever deeper and significant. From this horizon, one can see the density of the aphorism produced by Boris Dimovski: “The Graphicature is the drum in the orchestra.” The drum sets the rhythm (it is the heart of the Graphicature), but it also wakes up those who have dozed off in the meantime. It wakes them up.
Such an awakening is the exception in this exhibition: the non-graphical “Double Portrait of Ivaylo Petrov”. The important thing here is not the technique, it is not new for Gazdov. What is important is to pay homage to probably the best Bulgarian novelist, that this year we celebrate the centenary of the birth.
No memoryless culture is possible, no memoryless creativity. Memory – another site of resistance against the collapse.
Georgi Kapriev