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Format: VHS Video
Rejecting the Object
1989
This performance is a part of the group performances conducted by Bendji /Albena Mihaylova on the roof of the artists union building (UBA), 6 Shipka St., Sofia
(as a continuation of the performance Breathing Exercises)
Co-performers: Dimitar Grozdanov and Sasho Stoitsov
October 27, 1989. On the roof of the Shipka 6 Building during the Earth and Sky Exhibition, Bendji / Albena Mihaylova is acting her second performance. She ties two men (Dimitar Grozdanov and Sasho Stoitsov) down to chairs. Their heads are covered with foil. They hold objects, with no clearly discernible purpose. She takes the objects from them and then releases them by cutting the ropes. The act of their physical liberation is symbolically sacral. Albena turns into a child, lies down in an old child’s bathing tub and starts inflating balloons.
The artists Nedko Solakov and Valentin Stefanov take the tub with a ritualistic pomp and place it on a «pedestal». Death and birth converge.
During the Earth and Sky Exhibition the Roof of the UBA Building is literally crawling with plainclothes law enforcement officers. Dissident poets read their poetry in front of crowds of people who have come here to hear them. The tension is palpable.
UBA Shipka 6, Sofia, 1989


Full spec

DateAdded
2020-04-24T10:26:39Z
DateModified
2020-05-06T10:15:28Z
Key
FW9KIKGM
Language
Bulgarisch
Rights
Albena Mihaylova
RunningTime
00:02:20
SeriesTitle
Earth and Sky
Studio
Sofia