As part of the FUTURE UNFORGETTABLE project and in particular its first phase – IN DEFENCE OF SOLID MATERIAL –  in Arosita Gallery there will be realized a satellite exhibition gesture, presenting the work “Saxophone Player in the Bathroom”, 1973 by Sasho Stoitzov.

Sasho Stoitzov for his work “Saxophone Player in the Bathroom”:

“I returned to Blagoevgrad after graduating from the Art High School in Sofia, 1971.

From ideas flying in my mind, in the heights, I found myself in a closed and very limited place.

By working on the painting Saxophone Player in the Bathroom, I lived in a complete and incredible inner freedom.

Many aspects of the painting were “counter” to the definition of art back then, like painting a water heater, pipes in a bathroom, taps, a saxophone, which was considered American propaganda, as well as modern clothes then and bathroom tiles.

With the composition in the work I wanted to strengthen the idea of a “fisheye” and a distorted vertical in relation to the Earth, a sort of “capsule” moving through space.

I painted 4 tiles a day.

I presented the work for a regional exhibition in Blagoevgrad. There was a jury chaired by an artist representative from UBA Sofia (Union of Bulgarian Artists).

We were waiting outside with other artists for the jury’s decision, I was 21 years old at the time. The secretary of the group called me – the UBA representative wanted to talk to me. He told me: I have traveled the world and seen many exhibitions, the work can be part of the global art world, but finally the jury from Blagoevgrad did not allow it.

Recently, almost 40 years later, by total chance I met the same secretary of the group. At the opening of a new modern gallery, directly opposite of the old one and at the place where I was waiting for the result of the jury. She recognized me and told me that she would never forget the controversy that surrounded this work.

Its idea is about freedom, the one that the politically and socially oppressed people in those days were looking for, and finding it in those yet untouched spaces.

Oil paint on a “Panama” fabric canvas in order to create its shape, handmade primer, subframe used for “posters”, given to me by Plamen Bratanov. External frame designed by me.

The saxophone model is owned by a musician from Blagoevgrad.

We transported it on the bare roof of a brand new Opel (very rare) then, owned by the father (a doctor who worked in Libya) of my friend, the architect Plamen Paraskov.

In the early 90’s the work was shown in the gallery Ata Rai, along with preserved original tiles, the blouse and some photos of the old state of the bathroom.

It is also shown in my exhibition at the National Gallery of Fine Arts. Curated by Maria Vasileva

There was an idea, after the exhibition in Ata Rai (Ata Paradise), to participate in the Istanbul Biennale.

In his book, Chavdar Popov defines the work as the first postmodernist thinking in Bulgaria.

This sort of geometry in the work, in conjunction with the figure in the composition, later on appeared in my other works too.”

–

Sasho Stoitzov

Saxophone Player in the Bathroom, 1973

oil on canvas

170 x 190 cm

part of MFG collection, Sofia