Artist talk with Luchezar Boyadjiev: On Vacation

Luchezar Boyadjiev’s artistic practice constitutes a counter-monumental gesture that demonstrates how art can reshape the public sphere in subtle and humorous ways. In conversation with City Curator of Hamburg Joanna Warsza, Boyadjiev introduces his long-term project On Vacation, in which he retouches public equestrian statues by “removing” male rulers from their horses. This gesture leaves behind empty or unfinished pedestals, illustrating that dealing with memory is an open-ended process. The discussion highlights how this symbolic act of liberation can contribute to unlearning the colonial and imperialist hegemony present across the public spaces of our cities, creating new forms of alliance. 

Luchezar Boyadjiev (b. 1957, Sofia, BG) lives and works in Sofia. He graduated with a degree in art history  from the National Art Academy in Sofia in 1980 and continued his artistic education while living in New York City during the 1980s. Boyadjiev began his artistic career after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. His practice explores a personal interpretation of social processes, the relationship between private and public space, and the contemporary world as it oscillates between utopia and anti-utopia. He works across installation, photography, drawing, objects, text, video, and performative lectures.