The rich June exhibition program of the City Art Gallery - Plovdiv continues with the major solo exhibition "ALAFRANGA" by the "Franco-Bulgarian" artist Nikolay Panayotov. The curator of the exhibition is Hristina Bobokova.

Join us for the opening on June 18th at 18:00, and the exhibition will be on display until July 7th in Hall "2019", 32 Gladstone Street.

"In front of him is the white wall, wrapped in snake skeletons. They are rusty, creaking; half-rotted planks protrude from them, smelling of horsehair and a craving for coffee. It's necessary for the eyes to open, pierced by the arrows of sunrise. He enters the trap of the skeletal structure; the rusty pipes are slippery from the morning dew, the planks tired from memories of footsteps, filled with inspiration and enthusiasm. He begins to crawl upwards, reaches a height just enough to first see the emerging disk of the sun on the horizon. He sits. He tries to light a cigarette and strike the pose familiar to the art of this period, but this ritual remains half-realized. A stream of wind curves into the wind of change, the rusty snake scaffold collapses, the arrows of solar freedom pierce its entire body, carrying it to the city of their inspiration.

And they have spoken to him a lot about it, about the streets, the cafes, the artists, the parks, and the boundless, meaningful and senseless freedoms. They infected him, supported him, and he believed them, embarked on the path of their dreams. And he entered a similar scaffold, but arranged with glossy shop windows, polished facades, and civilized hypocrisies and courtesies, elegantly moving through parks, squares, and world-famous boulevards.

At the same time, along the white wall, the alafranga began to crawl upwards, incorporating into its decorative rhythms their past illusions and his current fluorescent burnings. He will try to unfold it and plant it in their native place, amidst the mounds of prehistoric ones, a gesture of completing the cycle of excitements and hopes, mutually shared.

"ALAFRANGA" is also an exhibition dedicated to the communication and support I received from the great Plovdiv artists of the 1960s-1990s."