Presentation of "Transtemporal Aesthetics" | Publication authored by Prof. DSc. Peter Tsanev | in Burgas
2026.04.19
20 April 2026 (Monday), 6:00 pm, House of Writers – Burgas
3 Vola Street, Burgas
The book "Transtemporal Aesthetics" is dedicated to the self-consciousness of art as a phenomenon outlined in the interdisciplinary gaps of fields such as psychological aesthetics, visual anthropology and philosophical criticism of art. The book aims to deduce the idea of immortality as a fundamental aesthetic category, which, with the development of the contemporary art system, manifests itself in various forms and programmes, posing the questions about the end, temporality, the past, the future and the present, embedded in the objects and subjects of art. Where does the time of immortality originate from in terms of aesthetics? The book insists on this being a question, which directs aesthetic immortality to all the manifestations of unrecognised radicality in relation to time.
The big question of transtemporal aesthetics is how art objects become aware of their own duration in relation to that structural part of them, which could continue to exist. What defines transtemporal aesthetics is the feeling of an “impenetrable”, eternal presence, which turns art objects into complex instruments capable of evolving and surviving on their own. The book is not limited to a description of phenomena that have already occurred, but aims to provoke the development of art towards transtemporal self-awareness, exploring the aesthetic potential of never-asked-before questions about time.
Peter Tsanev is a professor at the National Academy of Art in Sofia.
Doctor of Science in Art History, Head of the Department of Psychology of Art and Art Education.
Таught Theory of Art at University of Veliko Tarnovo (2005–2009), The Eye and the Picture within the the Master's degree programme in Philosophical Anthropology at the Faculty of Philosophy of Sofia University (2014–2018), and Visual Image and Perception at Faculty of Education and Arts (2019–2026)
Guest professor at Psychological Institute in Moscow, Department of Philosophical Anthropology and Art Therapy (2014–2015) and at Moscow Socio-Pedagogical Institute (MSPI) at Faculty of Applied Psychology (2015–2018), where in 2016 he was elected Honorary Professor
Member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists (UBA).
Co-founder of Association of Bulgarian Art Therapists (ABAT)
Author of the books "Psychology of Art" (2021), "Image and Consciousness in Art Therapy" (in Russian, co-authored with Vladimir Nikitin, Moscow: Cogito, 2018), "The Untold Bulgarian Abstraction" (in Bulgarian and English, co-authored with Stanislav Pamukchiev, Sofia: Union of Bulgarian Artists, 2014), and "Psychological Approaches in Art Studies" (2009)
The book is published within the framework of the 2025 Competition for Funding Projects on the Scientific Research and Artistic Activities at the National Academy of Art.