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IN GLORIFICATION OF GRAPHICS

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The realized and quickly established Varna Biennale worthily placed the seaside capital among the world centers of contemporary graphic arts, alongside Ljubljana, Krakow, Berlin, Baden-Baden, and São Paulo. The first effect was the possibility for the audience – broad, professional, and collegial – to have direct contact with creative movements and significant graphic artists, especially from countries in Central Europe: Poland, Hungary, Austria, the then Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the GDR – Albin Brunovsky, Vladimir Gadzovic, Jiri Anderle, Vincent Hlozhnik, Janos Kas, Velizar Krstic, Robert Jancovic, Miodrag Djuric – Dado… One of the explanations is that not one or two, but several of the leading Bulgarian graphic artists of this generation had received their artistic education at academies in these countries. And the second, much more defining consequence for the rise of printed graphics in our country was that it suddenly turned out to be the least subjected to reproaches for “unhealthy directions” in contemporary art in the free world. In the field of graphics, Bulgarian authors seemed to have won the right to almost unlimited freedom of form and mental journeys into an open figurative world, semi-shyly named by the official (and there was no other) criticism “metaphorical-allegorical style.” Individual editions of the Biennale acted as an enzyme, developing a constant interest in world graphics, nourished by notable events, primarily in Sofia, such as the exhibitions Contemporary Czechoslovak Fine Arts, Spanish Graphics, or Picasso – Last Graphic Sheets at the Sofia Art Gallery in 1984.

In many cases, “capital” turns into a concept with a particularly prestigious status, far surpassing its usual political-administrative usage. For cities having this luck, the effect may even multiply. For example, Varna, our unofficial wonderful “sea capital,” is rightfully proud of also having the fame of the capital of Bulgarian graphics. The first reason, and by no means the only one, is the history, the present, and, God willing, the future of the International Biennale of Graphics, whose 23rd edition took place in August and September 2025. Its wonderful consequence is the Graphic Art Gallery, which has grown into a huge collection accumulated over the past 45 years from the works of hundreds of artists who participated in the forum. For now, as part of the Boris Georgiev City Art Gallery, its newly opened (February 5, 2026) First Permanent Exhibition marked the factual birth of a new museum institution. The exhibited collection bears the name “Eternal Themes – New Forms. World Graphics” and consists of works – winners of the Grand Prize of the International Biennale. The ambitious exhibition and educational program of the gallery also carried out its next artistic action with the exhibition “Bulgarian Graphics – Global Dialogue” in the halls of the Dobrich Art Gallery, containing 57 works by Bulgarian graphic artists – laureates of the Biennale. It is obvious that the intention of the Graphic Art Gallery is to function not only as a collection and exhibition space, but also as an educational institute dedicated to this art, or rather to this group of connected arts.

Another circumstance is the accumulation of over four plus decades of an impressive in volume and quality collection of graphic works, which turns it into a museum collection, intended to function not only as a documentary and informational fund, but as an educational institute both for trends in world graphics and for the strongest manifestations of Bulgarian graphic artists in this nearly half-century period of the development of processes in the artistic scene in our country. This collection contains the landmark works of the galaxy of artists who gave the aesthetic physiognomy of their time: Todor Panayotov (winner of the Grand Prize of the First Varna Biennale), Stoimen Stoilov, Stoyan Tsanev, Zlatka Dabova, Hristo Neykov, Simeon Venov, Ventseslav Antonov, Stoyan Stoyanov – Techi, Borislav Stoev, Anastasia Panayotova, Rumen Skorchev, Lyubomir Yordanov, Stefan Markov, Plamen Penov, Yavor Tsanev, Alexander Aleksov, and so many other wonderful artists.

The invasion of explosively developing digital technologies over the past decades into areas previously reserved for graphic arts created new art objects and terms such as digital graphics and its other derivatives. The overall effect is the blurring of boundaries and the emergence of some amalgam of graphic design, poster, and traditional manual graphic techniques. In many cases, this is hardly a plus, although many of the world’s graphic forums are now not only widely open to freedom in innovations, but even some of the prestigious forums of traditional graphics have redirected their emphasis: the Krakow Biennale – to computer graphics, and that in Ljubljana – to media art. It is a credit to the Varna Biennale of Graphics that, for now, it proclaims the intention to adhere within the framework of classical types and techniques of printed graphics and the combinations among them. This is an intelligent tribute not only to an art with a rich history, but also to the very invention of the replicated image, of easily portable and distributable works, the revolutionary idea whose consequences are of fundamental importance for the course of civilization. It boils down to the connection of two constituent elements: a matrix of hard, most often natural material – stone, wood, metal – on which an image is engraved, and a light, portable surface on which, under pressure, an identical print is made in a limited quantity, which is the actual “replicated” work.

The subtext of the glance at this homage to contemporary printed graphics is also the desire to emphasize, and why not, to exalt its fundamental significance and value for the formation of the artistic language of the modern era. Since its emergence, it has been based on a concept containing several unique distinctions – the matrix, the imprint, the circulation, easy access, and the possibility of distribution. Being an element participating in the rise of global civilization on a technical level, it preserves and develops the mentality and emotions of the spiritual content of creativity. It also contains the paradox of unity between the limitation of circulation and the infinity of feelings and associations that it is capable of unlocking. This magical intertwining of printed graphics and other graphic arts simultaneously in the past and present is an illustration and proof of the deep connection of this branch of artistic refinement with things beyond it. It is part of the technical and intellectual fabric of civilization – from the possibility of mass access to images and knowledge to the preservation and cultivation of spirituality through the universal language of creativity. This implication is the most valuable subtext in the rich tradition of the Varna Biennale of Graphics and the preservation and development of its potential, to which the current activities of the Graphic Art Gallery have so nobly dedicated themselves.

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