Nedko Solakov

A Cornered Solo Show #1 (2021) is deliberately an unconventional intervention conceived by the artist Nedko Solakov (b. 1957, Cherven Bryag, Bulgaria) for a corner of the museum (as opposed to the galleries where artworks are usually displayed). It is for the artist the first of a series of solo exhibitions in insignificant corners in various prominent museums.

Renowned for his acerbic sense of humour and work that highlights the absurdities and contradictions of social norms, Solakov chose to present his work in Mudam’s cloakroom. In this confined and often overlooked space, he presents an installation that plays with the aesthetic judgements and codes of the retrospective exhibition format. The exhibition can be seen to engage with the subject of the social isolation engendered by the current health crisis. The artist elaborates: ‘It is a story about our times, when, even if we are cornered by the situation worldwide, we still have to survive, and an artist’s point of view, from the corner, might help us to better swallow the bitterness of daily life’.