BULGARIA ART

What happens when two experienced psychoanalysts with interest in film analysis decide to speculate about what really happened in the final hours of one of the 20th century's ultimate movie stars? The answer is one of the latest plays on Bulgaria's theatre stage, Marilyn Monroe's Final Hour. Dr Vivian Pramataroff-Hamburger and Prof Dr Andreas Hamburger have applied both their professional experience, imagination and sense for the dramatic to give their idea of what happened to Marilyn Monroe on 4 August 1962, just hours before she was found dead in her bed.

The throngs of tourists jostling for a better view of the Mona Lisa have become so overwhelming that the Louvre is already planning to exhibit it in a separate space. Such obstacles are not encountered when viewing Ahinora, a painting of a woman with eyes as enigmatic as Mona Lisa's smile, created by one of Bulgaria's most prominent painters.

Painted in 1925 by Ivan Milev (1897-1927), Ahinora mesmerises with her oversized, green eyes: feverish and fixed with fear, amazement or curiosity about something or someone beyond the frame.

Picasso's musing that every child is an artist is both true and exaggerated. Young children create art instinctively and with great enthusiasm – it is their way of exploring the world and the capabilities of their senses and fingers, to understand and express their emotions.

Since ancient times, the arts have been passed down from teacher to student – an established line of professionals who learned composition, themes and techniques from their elders, developed their own styles, made their own discoveries and then passed on their experience to the young. This practice nurtured traditions, spawned schools, inspired change and spawned new art forms.

An exciting exhibition, Thinking in Materials, at the Sofia Press Gallery, explores the idea of continuity through the influence of a master painter over a group of students he trained in the early 2000s.

The charity exhibition Buy Art, Give Future To a Child is a chance to buy top photography from some of Bulgaria's finest authors and to help disadvantaged children to realise their talents and potential. The proceeds from the exhibition at the Sofia Press Art Gallery will go to the Plyusheno Meche, or Teddy Bear, association which organises Bulgaria's Hidden Talents mentorship programme. It helps talented young people without parents or at risk to enlist in university or get a job.

The New Yorker is an institution; a magazine bought and read by generations for its captivating and meticulously researched, fact-checked and proofread texts, the dry witticism of its cartoons and the illustrated covers that offer a visual commentary on both local and global issues.

Aleksandrina Ivanova

Sinemorets, which name means "blue," is one of the most picturesque parts of the Bulgarian Black Sea cove: a rare combination of pristine beaches, impressive cliffs, a river and thick oak forests. You have probably seen it many times, in person or in photographs, including in this publication.

Andrei Rosetti, Veleka

We had visited Bulgaria briefly and loved the rich history of the country, the traditional culture still honored and close to the surface, the welcoming people we met, the Balkan cuisine and the wines of the countryside. It was clear to us that Sofia is a delightfully liveable city. We came for a year in Bulgaria – we’re now midway in our fourth year. 

Through vivid and at times poignant images Communist Bulgaria shows what has remained of this country's Communist material heritage. Included are some would famous sites such as the Communist Party Memorial House on Mount Buzludzha, popularly referred to as The Flying Saucer of Communism, downtown Sofia with its Stalinist architecture, and many monuments of Second World War resistance fighters. Thirty years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain most have been abandoned and are in various stages of decay, exuding eerie, even otherworldly vibes.

Yambol, in southeastern Bulgaria, has been a hub for various folk traditions for many centuries. Nowadays, alongside Pernik in western Bulgaria, it is thought of as one of Bulgaria's capitals of Kukeri, or mummers. An annual folk festival takes place in downtown Yambol, usually at the end of February or beginning of March, with mummers not only from the surrounding villages but also from all parts of Bulgaria that retain the tradition arriving by busloads to participate in a three-day folk extravaganza of loud music and even louder clanking of mummers' bells.

The exhibition was organised with the support of the American Embassy in Sofia. Ambassador Eric Rubin opened the event, together with Amelia Gesheva, the deputy minister of culture. The guests included Bulgarian and American expats, representatives of the diplomatic community, artists and photographers, entrepreneurs, journalists, members of the NGO sector and others.

Frontiers: Photography from the American Southwest will travel around Bulgaria. Its next stop is in Varna, with opening at Varna City Art Gallery on 5 April.

"There are many such places," he continues. "Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary… For myself I'll take Moab, Utah. I don't mean the town itself, of course, but the country which surrounds it – the canyonlands. The slickrock desert. The red dust and the burnt cliffs and the lonely sky – all that which lies beyond the end of the roads."

The exhibition covers some of the mesmerising and atmospheric remains of Jewish heritage in Bulgaria: from the mosaics of a 2nd century synagogue in Plovdiv, to abandoned and crumbling synagogues and cemeteries, the only reminders of the Jewish presence in a number of cities where the community left, in 1949-1951.

Before Sofia, the Jewish Bulgaria exhibition by Anthony Georgieff was on in Prague and in London. The exhibition was organised with the support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation and the Embassy of Israel in Bulgaria.

For over 10 years Yambol, the city in southeastern Bulgaria, has been the host of a major street festival attended by dozens of groups of mummers from all over Bulgaria. Usually, it is held at the end of February or the beginning of March, and from its beginning it has included an international photography exhibition of mummers and carnivals called Kukerlandia. In 2018, the Vagabond Magazine Special Prize went to Ekaterina Staromanova from Sofia.

Photography has of course changed beyond recognition since the digital revolution. Everyone with a smart phone now considers him or herself to be a photographer, and there is already a generation of young people who not only have no idea what a "darkroom" as opposed to Adobe Lightroom means, but who take Instagram to be the ultimate tool for disseminating visual statements ranging from the political to the selfies taken in front of some sunny beach or secluded waterfall.

The open road is unpredictable, it could take you anywhere and a return ticket is not guaranteed. Georgieff’s road takes us into a realm both familiar and unsettling, of classic Scotland and of another hidden, interior Scotland that takes you by surprise.

This is a realm of broom and mist, ruined castles and time-nibbled remains of crofts, burns and lochs, and oceanic waters that fill and empty and refill the land ceaselessly. And everywhere – the ever-shifting sky of steel-grey. It is a sky you don’t see on the European continent.

Bulgaria, one of Europe's least known lands, famously did not deport about 48,000 Jews during the Second World War. In 1943, before it had emerged that Nazi Germany would be losing the war, the Kingdom of Bulgaria, a German satellite, failed to do what was expected of it – despite all the plans, the array of barges and the waiting cattle cars. Who is to take the credit for the unprecedented rescue: the Communist Party, the Orthodox Church, the king, a bunch of forthright MPs who openly opposed the planned deportations, or the power of Bulgaria's civil society?

In Vagabond we usually don't cover theatre owing to the language barrier. For Out of Place, a one-man show by Guerassim Dichliev, however, we made an exception as this Bulgarian artist working in Paris is a mime – and does not use language.

Nicole is also an epidemiologist and international health expert with 20 years of experience managing and developing technical assistance, training and research projects. She is currently a part-time faculty member in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with a current project evaluating an early childhood development programme in Swaziland.

Art, culture and proper management of creative industries have proven a force for efficient and positive change for local communities. Just think of the excitement when your visit to another town or country coincides with an interesting festival, concert or art show. Remember all the beautiful pictures you have taken and shared of inspiring exhibitions, thought-provoking graffiti art or innovative visual solutions of urban and rural spaces. Look at the coffee mug rack and the shelves at your home, with their beautiful souvenirs that are more than mementos, but true objects of art.