The exhibition Favourite City at the Bulgarian Cultural Institute is one of the final events in this year’s London Festival of Bulgarian Culture, and the first London Exhibition of contemporary Bulgarian poster and graphic design. Curated by Anna Simeonoff, co-founder of the online Sophia-based graphic arts platform PlakatKombinat and a designer specialising in posters, book covers and…
| 17/12/2014
When István Szabó’s film Sunshine was released in 1999, it introduced a new audience to some of the finer points of Hungary’s history, as well as reminding us of some of its forgotten heroes. The protagonist, played by Ralph Fiennes, was based substantially on the life of Attila Petschauer, one of the world’s greatest Olympic…
| 14/12/2014
The Romanian Imaginarium – a magical title! And indeed, when entering the room on the first floor of the Romanian Cultural Centre, I’m confronted with shadow-creatures, flowery skulls and birds that ride on faceless humans. Even though the exhibition space is not purpose-built, the period-style chandelier and stucco decoration on the ceiling add to the…
| 14/11/2014
Small as the Courtauld Gallery may be, it’s host to an array of significant artworks. Its latest exhibition “Egon Schiele – the Radical Nude” is no exception, and that this is the first UK show devoted to Schiele in over twenty years makes it even more special. The exhibition is on the top floor of…
| 12/11/2014George Butler is a talented young illustrator, with a special focus on travel and current affairs. Having previously explored such hot subjects as the oil fields of Azerbaijan, soldiers in Afghanistan and the Syrian civil war, his latest exhibition at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London was dedicated to the lush region of Transylvania. This…
| 10/11/2014
The Russian North is alluring for many travellers to this part of the world. Here one is likely to be taken aback by the sheer sterility of the flat horizon so close to the North Pole, an experience that is both charming and uncanny. So different from the popular Moscow and St Petersburg, or indeed any…
| 24/10/2014
St Petersburg Gallery belongs to a tacit network of recently formed Russian art hubs in London, the past few years having seen the launch of now renowned institutions like Calvert 22, GRAD, Erarta and, indeed, St Petersburg itself. The latter, evoking the most explicit connotations of the Russian world, combines the expertise both of art…
| 13/10/2014
For any more-than-casual visitor, it’s always interesting to see what others have made of Romania. The country is like nowhere else in Europe – to a visitor it’s more hospitable, more generous, and, for all its bafflingly unspoken codes, apparently less hemmed in by rules and regulations. A note of the surreal hangs over everything:…
| 14/07/2014
The Trafačka artistic collective have been running a countercultural art gallery in the Libeň district of Prague (once home to subversive Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal) since 2007. According to its website: “Trafačka is a creative space, a place for meeting and free expression. At Trafačka it is possible to follow the emerging trends in contemporary…
| 26/05/2014
“I started drawing and writing at the same time: when I was big enough to hold a pencil,” Lucie Lomová recalls. “The oldest drawing of mine I’ve been able to find starts as a written fairytale, then there is an illustration, and it gradually changes into comics.” Lomová was speaking at an event celebrating Europe’s…
| 20/05/2014