Kamen Stoyanov’s artistic work, which is located in a realm between photography and video, draws on urban situations sited on the margins of public attention. The subject-matter that Stoyanov records with the camera, turning it into a documentation of social reality in the process, is made up of sights that are generally invisible to passers-by, for they can only be perceived over a longer time period. The focus of Stoyanov’s interest is on observing marginal social events, which are scarcely perceived yet provide fundamental information about the way in which public space is structured. The slowness of quotidian events, always characterised by a touch of irony, is conveyed in the video »Roma Open Air Museum« (2006). It presents a portrait of Fausto Delle Chiaie, a middle-aged artist in Rome, who runs his own museum in which he is director, cleaner and guard rolled into one. This museum shows a few objects and paintings presented on stone walls in the open air. Every day the director arranges and cleans this space, which is open to the public, and is also the ticket-seller. Documentation of these activities focuses on alternative methods of shaping one’s life in a way that counteracts the global demands of a perfectly organised and stress-ridden life.

 

Translated by Helen Ferguson

 

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