LECTURE | THE BIG CLASH. In the Chronicles of an Academic Competition
2024.01.07

19 January 2024, 6:00pm, Academia Gallery, National Academy of Art, 1 Shipka Street, Sofia
Lecturer: Dr. Milena Balcheva-Bozhkova, curator of the exhibition "The Academy as Destiny. 120 Years Since the Birth of Iliya Petrov"
The lecture will be delivered within the framework of the exhibition "The Academy as Destiny. 120 years since the birth of Iliya Petrov" in Academia Gallery of the National Academy of Art. Its focus is on the history of the competition for the position of Painting teacher at the State Academy of Arts, held in 1940. The competition is an important moment in the artistic development of Iliya Petrov, which he won in a contested battle with a number of notable artists. The competition also represents an interesting page in the history of the Academy of Arts before 1944. Noisy and contested, today it is perhaps the most serious competition in the life of the Academy, held in the period of turbulent passions around the problem of academicism and current trends, which began as early as the 1930s. A time of fierce ideological clashes between the representatives of the old and the new generation, which often became the occasion for fierce disputes.
Dr. Milena Balcheva-Bozhkova is an art critic. Since 2013, she has been the curator of the Museum Collection of the National Academy of Art. Author of scientific publications and curator of exhibitions related to Bulgarian art from the first half of the 20th century. She graduated with a degree in History of Art in 2006, and in 2017 she defended her dissertation on the topic "Women Artists in Bulgarian Art from the 1930s". Both degrees were obtained at the National Academy of Art.
The lecture is open to the public.