ARC Projects

15 December 2007 - 26 January 2008
Preview 14 December, 7 - 9 pm (by invitation)
Exhibition open Wednesday - Saturday, 3 - 8 pm
Festive closure from 23 December, open again 3 January

Multiplicities was the first group exhibition at ARC Projects featuring half our current roster of sixteen artists - four based in the UK and four in Bulgaria. This was the first exhibition in a Sofia gallery for mid-career international artists Susan Collins, Alec Finlay, Thomson & Craighead and Mare Tralla. This was also the first occasion their work could be seen alongside that of their Bulgarian peers Luchezar Boyadjiev, Alla Georgieva, Ivan Moudov and Kamen Stoyanov.

"Multiplicities" is a term borrowed from mathematics, which speaks of the condition of being multiple, the relation between a number of identical objects or entities; It has also been used by theorists Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda to describe how our perceptions of reality change through time, in a constant flow of variety and heterogeneity at a single point in space. Multiplicities can encompass the relationship between original artwork and copy, but also how artists transform supposedly fixed meanings during the process of viewing the work.

Multiplicities showcased new and recent works, all multiples and limited editions, including prints, objects, Internet transmissions, and photographs. The exhibition captured the multifaceted approaches of contemporary artists to traditional genres such as the treatment of landscape, the self-portrait and the still life, or abstraction. Multiplicities also reveals the artists’ commentaries on the historical legacy of movements including Dada, Pop, and Socialist Realism. Works included a re-enactment of Vera Mukhina's iconic sculpture from 1937; Self-portraits as Lenin; Fortune teller readings from cups of Turkish coffee; A hybrid of carnation and electric fan; Sexually suggestive cushions; Decorative live Internet newsfeeds; The visual cacophony of contemporary Moscow; Colonies designed for different species of bird; Webcam images of the quintessential Scottish landscape.