Mariela Gemisheva Dance fashion performance
Photography: Susan Tsu
One Line-Seven – Simultaneous/Individual Movement, Saturday Oct 26, 2013
Dance Studio 306, Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Pittsburgh, USA
PARTICIPANTS:
Photography: Susan Tsu
One Line-Seven – Simultaneous/Individual Movement, Saturday Oct 26, 2013
Dance Studio 306, Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Pittsburgh, USA
PARTICIPANTS:
| DANCERS Rachel Keller Tsilala Grahman-Haynes Erika Olson Jennifer Oughton Mitch Marios Michael McGuire Avery Smith COSTUME DESIGNERS Jamie Gross Daniel Mathews DeLisle Merrill Sam Pollack Hannah Prochaska | GUESTS Peter Cooke Tome’ Cousin Brian Russman CT Steele ADVISORS Judy Conte Susan Tsu VIDEORGAPHER/DVD Jason Lewis Simone Zwarenstein Buzz Miller – Video/Media Design Technician |
Yuzina Art Gallery, Sofia 2013
MARIELA GEMISHEVA’S NEW BOUDOIR 2013
The exhibition is an installation – a stylized lady’s boudoir that represents the personal space of a female artist and fashion designer. The project includes fragments of the artist’s works from the last 10 years (the exhibitions ”Out of myself” 2003, “Objects 2007”, “Self-portrait“ 2008,”My favorite boudoir” 2010, “Drawings” 2011), that explore her own personality. Also the exhibition includes specially created author objects in which key elements of deformed boudoir accessories that represent the “fetishized female beginning “. The installation questions the conjuncture status of the Fetish, reviewed as a repeated value, commented and traversed in a state of difference that will be an element that feeds its relation to fashion – FASHION & FETISH.
The project is carried out in partnership with FAC /Fashion Art Center/ Mariela Gemisheva. “The etiquettes that label the object-accessory with the tag FAC may be interpreted not only as “Fashion Art Center” but also as “Frequently Asked Questions” or as another popular English word starting with the letter F.” (Vasilena Mircheva, LIK magazine, October 2010)
The fashion designer Svetoslav Kolchagov is a guest stars in the Boudoir Project. He has been Mariela Gemisheva’s assistant in her main fashion projects from 1998 to 2993. He has taken part in “OBJECTS IN FEMALE GENDER” – classical boudoir objects /corsets, crinolines and dresses/ especially created for MARIELA GEMISHEVA’S NEW BOUDOIR 2013. Svetoslav Kolchagov is born in Plovdiv, since 2003 he lives and works in London. From 2004 to 2005 he worked for Alexander McQueen, between 2003 and 2004 he worked for Preen and Burberry. Since the spring of 2006 till now he is creating fashion for Vivienne Westwood Golden label.
Mariela Gemisheva is a fashion designer and a performance artist born in Kazanlak. In 1992 she graduated her Masters in Design from the Arts, Design and Architecture Academy in Prague. She has specialized in interior design (1990) with the Borek Sipek architect studio in Amsterdam. In 2007 she gained her PhD in Visual Arts from the National Academy of Art, her thesis coordinator was Prof. Lubomir Stoykov, PhD.
Mariela Gemisheva is famous for her original and memorable experimental decisions in the field of fashion as well as her attractive performances. Art and fashion for her are: “practice, communication, process, restlessness, a dynamic by which you pace your everyday rhythm”. Provocation is a key element of her works, according to the American curator Roger Conover “she is inimitable when it comes to transforming limitations to advantages”.
Mariela Gemisheva is a two time winner of the “Golden Needle” award (1996 & 1998) from the Fashion Academy. She is a nominee for the: Designer of the Year award (2006) from the Fashion Academy the Woman of the Year award (2008) presented by the GRAZIA magazine in the Fashion category, the Contemporary art award “Shortlist 2008” (GAUDENZ RUF AWARD). Mariela Gemisheva also takes the role of a model in front of Aleksander Nishkov’s camera – Self-portrait /2008/, Multi – me /2012/.
Associate professor Mariela Gemisheva, PhD is a member of: the Bulgarian Artist Union since 1995, the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia, since 2000. Since 2003 she has been teaching the Fashion Project discipline in the Fashion department of the National Art Academy in Sofia. In 2013 docent Mariela Gemisheva PhD celebrates her 20th creative and professional anniversary.
MARIELA GEMISHEVA’S NEW BOUDOIR 2013
The exhibition is an installation – a stylized lady’s boudoir that represents the personal space of a female artist and fashion designer. The project includes fragments of the artist’s works from the last 10 years (the exhibitions ”Out of myself” 2003, “Objects 2007”, “Self-portrait“ 2008,”My favorite boudoir” 2010, “Drawings” 2011), that explore her own personality. Also the exhibition includes specially created author objects in which key elements of deformed boudoir accessories that represent the “fetishized female beginning “. The installation questions the conjuncture status of the Fetish, reviewed as a repeated value, commented and traversed in a state of difference that will be an element that feeds its relation to fashion – FASHION & FETISH.
The project is carried out in partnership with FAC /Fashion Art Center/ Mariela Gemisheva. “The etiquettes that label the object-accessory with the tag FAC may be interpreted not only as “Fashion Art Center” but also as “Frequently Asked Questions” or as another popular English word starting with the letter F.” (Vasilena Mircheva, LIK magazine, October 2010)
The fashion designer Svetoslav Kolchagov is a guest stars in the Boudoir Project. He has been Mariela Gemisheva’s assistant in her main fashion projects from 1998 to 2993. He has taken part in “OBJECTS IN FEMALE GENDER” – classical boudoir objects /corsets, crinolines and dresses/ especially created for MARIELA GEMISHEVA’S NEW BOUDOIR 2013. Svetoslav Kolchagov is born in Plovdiv, since 2003 he lives and works in London. From 2004 to 2005 he worked for Alexander McQueen, between 2003 and 2004 he worked for Preen and Burberry. Since the spring of 2006 till now he is creating fashion for Vivienne Westwood Golden label.
Mariela Gemisheva is a fashion designer and a performance artist born in Kazanlak. In 1992 she graduated her Masters in Design from the Arts, Design and Architecture Academy in Prague. She has specialized in interior design (1990) with the Borek Sipek architect studio in Amsterdam. In 2007 she gained her PhD in Visual Arts from the National Academy of Art, her thesis coordinator was Prof. Lubomir Stoykov, PhD.
Mariela Gemisheva is famous for her original and memorable experimental decisions in the field of fashion as well as her attractive performances. Art and fashion for her are: “practice, communication, process, restlessness, a dynamic by which you pace your everyday rhythm”. Provocation is a key element of her works, according to the American curator Roger Conover “she is inimitable when it comes to transforming limitations to advantages”.
Mariela Gemisheva is a two time winner of the “Golden Needle” award (1996 & 1998) from the Fashion Academy. She is a nominee for the: Designer of the Year award (2006) from the Fashion Academy the Woman of the Year award (2008) presented by the GRAZIA magazine in the Fashion category, the Contemporary art award “Shortlist 2008” (GAUDENZ RUF AWARD). Mariela Gemisheva also takes the role of a model in front of Aleksander Nishkov’s camera – Self-portrait /2008/, Multi – me /2012/.
Associate professor Mariela Gemisheva, PhD is a member of: the Bulgarian Artist Union since 1995, the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia, since 2000. Since 2003 she has been teaching the Fashion Project discipline in the Fashion department of the National Art Academy in Sofia. In 2013 docent Mariela Gemisheva PhD celebrates her 20th creative and professional anniversary.
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
2012 "Fish Party 2" for Sofia Queer Forum, performance, Ogosta House, Sofia
The original Fish party hade been presented at ATA Center for contemporary Art, Sofia in 2004. The main role was taken by three top female models in “sterile white” clothes *2004 "FISH PARTY", performance
Nine years after the first performance, these roles are taken by one male and two female models, underlining performativity and theatricality of womanliness stereotypically associated with the smell of fish and cooking.
2012 "Fish Party 2" for Sofia Queer Forum, performance, Ogosta House, Sofia
The original Fish party hade been presented at ATA Center for contemporary Art, Sofia in 2004. The main role was taken by three top female models in “sterile white” clothes *2004 "FISH PARTY", performance
Nine years after the first performance, these roles are taken by one male and two female models, underlining performativity and theatricality of womanliness stereotypically associated with the smell of fish and cooking.
The Czech Cultural Institute,
The Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia
The new project titled Multi-Me by the well known fashion designer Mariela Gemisheva combines fashion design, studio photography and performance. The artist graduated the Academy for Architecture, Design and Art in Prague (VSUP, Praha) and teaches at the Fashion Department of the National Arty Academy in Sofia. After Out of Myself (2002) and Self-portrait (2008) the author is once again experimenting with her own self in the role of a model; she is furthering her investigations into the relationships between the individual and clothing. This time the point of departure is her spectacular portrait made by the photographer Alexander Nishkov. The image was initially meant for the website of the designer.
Not one but two Mariela(s) are present in the frame; these are two almost identical figures that enter into some peculiar and almost provocative interaction. This is not an act of somebody looking at herself in the mirror which is a common devise used in the fashion magazines. The discreet but obvious differences are actually two different manifestations of the same person; we tend to read them as evidences for the complex and the contradictory nature of the model. The process of “multiplication” is taken further in the performance where the figures of repetition are leaving the static of the formal frame and are taking the catwalk while invading the space of the viewer.
The composition of the image is a paradoxically minimal gesture when seen in the context of the usual fashion display – in fact it only shows one dress. It is made from dark fabric in a deconstructive style and shapes that remind us of sculpted drapery. Does the same outfit turn all its lady owners into identical “hangers” for fancy clothing? Is the willpower of design and the designer so strong that it is able to standardize and annul human differences? It seems that Mariela Gemisheva is rejecting one of the most effective aspects of fashion – its diversity, in order to focus her attention on the dominating component – the personality of the owner of the dress. Today when fashion is one of the most powerful global industries whose consumers we all are – from the “fashionistas” to the “fashion victims”, such a reminder seems totally relevant.
Curator of the project: Iara Boubnova
The Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia
The new project titled Multi-Me by the well known fashion designer Mariela Gemisheva combines fashion design, studio photography and performance. The artist graduated the Academy for Architecture, Design and Art in Prague (VSUP, Praha) and teaches at the Fashion Department of the National Arty Academy in Sofia. After Out of Myself (2002) and Self-portrait (2008) the author is once again experimenting with her own self in the role of a model; she is furthering her investigations into the relationships between the individual and clothing. This time the point of departure is her spectacular portrait made by the photographer Alexander Nishkov. The image was initially meant for the website of the designer.
Not one but two Mariela(s) are present in the frame; these are two almost identical figures that enter into some peculiar and almost provocative interaction. This is not an act of somebody looking at herself in the mirror which is a common devise used in the fashion magazines. The discreet but obvious differences are actually two different manifestations of the same person; we tend to read them as evidences for the complex and the contradictory nature of the model. The process of “multiplication” is taken further in the performance where the figures of repetition are leaving the static of the formal frame and are taking the catwalk while invading the space of the viewer.
The composition of the image is a paradoxically minimal gesture when seen in the context of the usual fashion display – in fact it only shows one dress. It is made from dark fabric in a deconstructive style and shapes that remind us of sculpted drapery. Does the same outfit turn all its lady owners into identical “hangers” for fancy clothing? Is the willpower of design and the designer so strong that it is able to standardize and annul human differences? It seems that Mariela Gemisheva is rejecting one of the most effective aspects of fashion – its diversity, in order to focus her attention on the dominating component – the personality of the owner of the dress. Today when fashion is one of the most powerful global industries whose consumers we all are – from the “fashionistas” to the “fashion victims”, such a reminder seems totally relevant.
Curator of the project: Iara Boubnova
ICA, Sofia, curator Iara Bubnova
Photography: Kalin Serapionov
Photography: Kalin Serapionov
Ogms Gallery in the drawer in ICA, Sofia
Lush, lavish, luxurious, intense - the fashion and artistic performances, art objects and projects of Mariela Gemisheva are filled with special splendour. It carries a sense of individual style and reveals the way in which the attributes, images and aggression of fashion can be used as a complex language to create and express individuality. Her works are based on the idea of independency of the images that the author creates and exhibits at the borderline between fashion and art, fashion show and performance, accessory and art object. Thus they act as comments of the contemporary industry and personality profiles created by object consumption and life styles. Mariela Gemisheva separates and at the same time brings together “life” and “style”, always in a very specific manner.
In her latest art project "Guns and Roses Oil" the artist uses scent as a means to express the sense of beauty and violence. The drawer of 0gms Gallery is full of Kalashnikov 47 cartridges that are filled with pure rose oil mixed with a little quantity of explosive. The “perfume” thus received is displayed into cartridges that are de-shaped in a special way for the purpose of the project and in this case replace the traditional vial. The artist’s name and the name of the project engraved on the cartridge represent an authorship signature to the artwork but a fashion brand as well. The dual status of the engraving, characteristic of Mariela Gemisheva’s work style, brings the viewer back to the contemplation on the value of an artwork amidst the multiple objects and attributes of contemporary fashion industry and mainstream.
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Lush, lavish, luxurious, intense - the fashion and artistic performances, art objects and projects of Mariela Gemisheva are filled with special splendour. It carries a sense of individual style and reveals the way in which the attributes, images and aggression of fashion can be used as a complex language to create and express individuality. Her works are based on the idea of independency of the images that the author creates and exhibits at the borderline between fashion and art, fashion show and performance, accessory and art object. Thus they act as comments of the contemporary industry and personality profiles created by object consumption and life styles. Mariela Gemisheva separates and at the same time brings together “life” and “style”, always in a very specific manner.
In her latest art project "Guns and Roses Oil" the artist uses scent as a means to express the sense of beauty and violence. The drawer of 0gms Gallery is full of Kalashnikov 47 cartridges that are filled with pure rose oil mixed with a little quantity of explosive. The “perfume” thus received is displayed into cartridges that are de-shaped in a special way for the purpose of the project and in this case replace the traditional vial. The artist’s name and the name of the project engraved on the cartridge represent an authorship signature to the artwork but a fashion brand as well. The dual status of the engraving, characteristic of Mariela Gemisheva’s work style, brings the viewer back to the contemplation on the value of an artwork amidst the multiple objects and attributes of contemporary fashion industry and mainstream.
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Sariev Gallery, Plovdiv 2010
Mariela Gemisheva is one of the most emblematic figures on contemporary Bulgarian art scene, who has been actively participating in it for the last 15 years. Some of the definitions that characterize her are: art-designer, performer, avant-garde and visual artist. She defines herself as a fashion designer and an artist.
“My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition in Sariev Gallery develops a project from 2008 entitled “My Favorite Boudoir Garment”, which represents an object-garment-sculpture. It is a commentary upon the type of live sculpture installations that the audience does not interact with as in Vanessa Beecroft’s creation work on one hand and Sylvie Fleury’ s compositions, who uses luxurious products and turns them into a shopping fetish. In “My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition in Sariev Gallery Mariela Gemisheva comments indirectly upon the presence of the body in Vanessa Beecroft’s work and its absence in Sylvie Fleur’s by exploring the two principles of existence. She analyzes the presence and absence of the body, the process of transformation of an art-work.
“My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition has three consecutive stages:
1st stage. Installation – during the opening of the exhibition
The installation represents a stylized lady’s boudoir with an object-garment as a basic component, which is exposed on a dummy in the center of the gallery space. The walls are “decorated” with 7 drawings – A3 format and a mirror with the same size. A handbag deformed especially for the show is also a part of the installation.
2nd stage. Performance PEEP SHOW – in the Night of Museums and Galleries – Plovdiv
The garment-sculpture is turned into a bed, and the space – into a tumbled boudoir; then the artist enters the gallery, dressed ceremoniously; puts off her clothes, prepares herself for sleeping and falls asleep for 4 hours. All this is being watched by the audience and recorded with a camera, installed on the ceiling of the gallery. The record is projected at the gallery window, which reminds of the mirror wall in the peep show boxes. At the end of the performance somebody from outside has to wake the artist.
3rd stage. Boudoir composition – after the Night of Museums and Galleries – Plovdiv
After the PEEP SHOW performance in the gallery will stay the tumbled boudoir without the presence of the artist’s body and all the accessories and the video-record from the performance.
In “My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition Mariela Gemisheva manipulates with themes central for her creative work: the status as a fetish and a handed down value; its discussing and changing into something which is also fetishist but in a different context. Dialectical metamorphoses are expressed in the three stages of the exhibition.
In the first stage the stylized lady’s boudoir, the garment-statue, the drawings, the handbag represent all that is womanish, turned into a fetish, but lacking the person. The garment reminds of the Venetian carnivals and the celebrating of anonymity, while the Japanese model of the girdle reminds of the clothing of a geisha (a woman who serves, without being personal). There is also an ironical hint to the long lasting of the fetish expressed through the everlasting synthetic materials.
The second stage – the PEEP SHOW performance represents the demonstrative breaking down of the status quo and the ceremonious participation of the author as an object. The transformation of the garment-statue into a bed, the messing up and the framing of a real boudoir, imply a human presence. With the ritual undressing before the audience and the make-up removing the artist prepares herself for the initiation of sleeping. In this second part of the performance the body becomes inactive and gets the role of an object-sculpture and at the same time is an antipode to the sculpture-garment from the first stage. It can be associated with the fairytale about the Sleeping Beauty – the sleeping seen as a temporary death of the body and the camera as an impartial narrator and witness. The audience outside the gallery, who watches the video record appears as a subjective interpreter. This one who wakes the artist at the end brings the body and the person back to life after the initiation of sleeping. Mariela Gemisheva parodies the clichés and plays with the models in the psychoanalysis, which is an approach characteristic of her creative work.
The third stage – The boudoir composition comprises elements from the previous stages, but forms a new meaning level. In the tumbled boudoir after the PEEP SHOW the body is absent – a reference to the first stage, but now there is a video record that is a memento of the body presence during the performance-culmination. In this stage the object synthesizes the absence of the body, the signs left after its presence and the recorded events. The manipulation with the transformation of an object – with or without the presence of a body in three consecutive stages, puts the question about time measuring by the presence-absence of the person.
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Mariela Gemisheva is one of the most emblematic figures on contemporary Bulgarian art scene, who has been actively participating in it for the last 15 years. Some of the definitions that characterize her are: art-designer, performer, avant-garde and visual artist. She defines herself as a fashion designer and an artist.
“My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition in Sariev Gallery develops a project from 2008 entitled “My Favorite Boudoir Garment”, which represents an object-garment-sculpture. It is a commentary upon the type of live sculpture installations that the audience does not interact with as in Vanessa Beecroft’s creation work on one hand and Sylvie Fleury’ s compositions, who uses luxurious products and turns them into a shopping fetish. In “My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition in Sariev Gallery Mariela Gemisheva comments indirectly upon the presence of the body in Vanessa Beecroft’s work and its absence in Sylvie Fleur’s by exploring the two principles of existence. She analyzes the presence and absence of the body, the process of transformation of an art-work.
“My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition has three consecutive stages:
1st stage. Installation – during the opening of the exhibition
The installation represents a stylized lady’s boudoir with an object-garment as a basic component, which is exposed on a dummy in the center of the gallery space. The walls are “decorated” with 7 drawings – A3 format and a mirror with the same size. A handbag deformed especially for the show is also a part of the installation.
2nd stage. Performance PEEP SHOW – in the Night of Museums and Galleries – Plovdiv
The garment-sculpture is turned into a bed, and the space – into a tumbled boudoir; then the artist enters the gallery, dressed ceremoniously; puts off her clothes, prepares herself for sleeping and falls asleep for 4 hours. All this is being watched by the audience and recorded with a camera, installed on the ceiling of the gallery. The record is projected at the gallery window, which reminds of the mirror wall in the peep show boxes. At the end of the performance somebody from outside has to wake the artist.
3rd stage. Boudoir composition – after the Night of Museums and Galleries – Plovdiv
After the PEEP SHOW performance in the gallery will stay the tumbled boudoir without the presence of the artist’s body and all the accessories and the video-record from the performance.
In “My Favorite Boudoir” exhibition Mariela Gemisheva manipulates with themes central for her creative work: the status as a fetish and a handed down value; its discussing and changing into something which is also fetishist but in a different context. Dialectical metamorphoses are expressed in the three stages of the exhibition.
In the first stage the stylized lady’s boudoir, the garment-statue, the drawings, the handbag represent all that is womanish, turned into a fetish, but lacking the person. The garment reminds of the Venetian carnivals and the celebrating of anonymity, while the Japanese model of the girdle reminds of the clothing of a geisha (a woman who serves, without being personal). There is also an ironical hint to the long lasting of the fetish expressed through the everlasting synthetic materials.
The second stage – the PEEP SHOW performance represents the demonstrative breaking down of the status quo and the ceremonious participation of the author as an object. The transformation of the garment-statue into a bed, the messing up and the framing of a real boudoir, imply a human presence. With the ritual undressing before the audience and the make-up removing the artist prepares herself for the initiation of sleeping. In this second part of the performance the body becomes inactive and gets the role of an object-sculpture and at the same time is an antipode to the sculpture-garment from the first stage. It can be associated with the fairytale about the Sleeping Beauty – the sleeping seen as a temporary death of the body and the camera as an impartial narrator and witness. The audience outside the gallery, who watches the video record appears as a subjective interpreter. This one who wakes the artist at the end brings the body and the person back to life after the initiation of sleeping. Mariela Gemisheva parodies the clichés and plays with the models in the psychoanalysis, which is an approach characteristic of her creative work.
The third stage – The boudoir composition comprises elements from the previous stages, but forms a new meaning level. In the tumbled boudoir after the PEEP SHOW the body is absent – a reference to the first stage, but now there is a video record that is a memento of the body presence during the performance-culmination. In this stage the object synthesizes the absence of the body, the signs left after its presence and the recorded events. The manipulation with the transformation of an object – with or without the presence of a body in three consecutive stages, puts the question about time measuring by the presence-absence of the person.
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
The new project of the distinguished fashion designer Mariela Gemisheva and her Fashion Art Center (FAC) presents a collection of clothes constructed from silk batiste, linen, velvet and bruchniks (pleated skirts) that form the basis of the traditional northern Bulgarian folk dress.
Mariela Gemisheva is known for her explorations into the boundaries of fashion. She presents these in the form of experimental fashion shows that are in fact performances with the participation of professional models as well as in the form of photo shoots dedicated to her own self. The “events” created by Mariela Gemisheva often happen in totally unexpected spaces. They count on the use of alternative means of expression such as demolished buildings and sculptural elements, thorn clothing and worn-out fireman’ uniforms, provocative unisex items and deconstructed pieces of underwear with distinct erotic appeal.
The project Old Fashion Fashion, season 2010 for the Sfumato stage is a mono spectacle by Maria Sylvester, which is camouflaging the fashion event. Gemisheva and the designers of FAC, Yelena Kesic and Boyan Petroushevski, are analyzing the relationship between the substance and the notion, the person and the camouflage, between fashion and theater. They are forcing the famous public personality to demonstrate her relationship with and attitudes for a set of 12 unique silhouettes, all classical and wearable pieces of clothing, in a very direct way – on stage, under the limelight and in front of the (un)initiated audience.
Sound: Dr. Feelgroov
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Hair Styles: Vassil Atanasov
Make up: Tzveti Hristova
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Mariela Gemisheva is known for her explorations into the boundaries of fashion. She presents these in the form of experimental fashion shows that are in fact performances with the participation of professional models as well as in the form of photo shoots dedicated to her own self. The “events” created by Mariela Gemisheva often happen in totally unexpected spaces. They count on the use of alternative means of expression such as demolished buildings and sculptural elements, thorn clothing and worn-out fireman’ uniforms, provocative unisex items and deconstructed pieces of underwear with distinct erotic appeal.
The project Old Fashion Fashion, season 2010 for the Sfumato stage is a mono spectacle by Maria Sylvester, which is camouflaging the fashion event. Gemisheva and the designers of FAC, Yelena Kesic and Boyan Petroushevski, are analyzing the relationship between the substance and the notion, the person and the camouflage, between fashion and theater. They are forcing the famous public personality to demonstrate her relationship with and attitudes for a set of 12 unique silhouettes, all classical and wearable pieces of clothing, in a very direct way – on stage, under the limelight and in front of the (un)initiated audience.
Sound: Dr. Feelgroov
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Hair Styles: Vassil Atanasov
Make up: Tzveti Hristova
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Costume designer for "SALOME", opera in one act by Richard Strauss, base on the play of Oskar Wilde in SOFIA OPERA AND BALET, Co-production with Central and East-European Music Theatre Association.
Photography: Aleksander Nishkov
Photography: Aleksander Nishkov
The challenge to go to Zürich and be provoked by the works of artists such as Sylvie Fleury and Pipilotti Rist…
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“Self-portrait”, the last project of the celebrated Bulgarian fashion designer Mariela Gemisheva presents a cycle of photographs documenting the radical transformation from white to black. The artist is positioning herself “on the other side” by taking the role of a model and posing for the camera of Alexander Nishkov, the fashion photographer. For the eye of the camera she is tearing apart the ephemeral veils of the wedding dress, this conventional symbol of innocence, tradition and the ritual of routine, in order to cloth herself in her own individuality – a black robe bearing the “Mariela Gemisheva” design label.
The two groups of photographs, the white and the black, are the result of a performance, which is located in the realm shared by the genres of documentary, studio and fashion photography. Undressing and dressing, just like in a palimpsest - the writing of a new text over an already existing one, are not treated as a mundane act of covering and uncovering. These signify the search and the discovery of the self, the emerging of the Female-Subject full of strength, armed with self-confidence and inner stability. Her body can not be subjugated or exploited, transformed or improved, because it is the embodiment of reality.
Mariela Gemisheva once again (after the photo cycle "Out of Myself", 2002), is using visual cliché typical for the current language of fashion representation. Within this familiar context the artist is striving to combine analytical conceptualism and radical aesthetics.
Iara Boubnova
Curator of the project
The two groups of photographs, the white and the black, are the result of a performance, which is located in the realm shared by the genres of documentary, studio and fashion photography. Undressing and dressing, just like in a palimpsest - the writing of a new text over an already existing one, are not treated as a mundane act of covering and uncovering. These signify the search and the discovery of the self, the emerging of the Female-Subject full of strength, armed with self-confidence and inner stability. Her body can not be subjugated or exploited, transformed or improved, because it is the embodiment of reality.
Mariela Gemisheva once again (after the photo cycle "Out of Myself", 2002), is using visual cliché typical for the current language of fashion representation. Within this familiar context the artist is striving to combine analytical conceptualism and radical aesthetics.
Iara Boubnova
Curator of the project
A special project for the shortlist nomination for the Golden Needle Award of the Academy of Fashion in the category Designer of the Year 2006.
The project is a fashion show-performance that showcases a collection of clothing which is challenging the contemporary aesthetical and functional demands on women of a specific kind – those strong women who project personalized appeal and have a strong individualized presence within the complex social environment that we exist in at the beginning of the 21st century. The collection is organized in the style of FEMME FATALE and contrasting black, white and red forms that have subjected to the deconstructive plastic potential of the pleat.
Participating actresses:
Maya Bezhanska
Adriana Naydenova
Linda Rouseva
Paraskeva Dzhoukelova
Kasiel Noah Asher
Stefania Koleva
Ernestina Shinova
Emanuela Shkodreva
Teodora Douhovnikova
Biliana Petrinska
“The "Theater Girls" performance by Mariela Gemisheva won the hearts of the audience. The designer had invited the artist-drummer Edmond Demirdjian for a live session as well. One after the other the famous actresses were walking out on stage against the backdrop of his improvisations. Each one presented a specific female character with the appropriately designed clothing outfit. The show had a strong effect reminiscent of “The Ball”, the brilliant film by Ettore Scola”.
Desi Todorova, fashion critic
Photography: Valentina Petrova
The project is a fashion show-performance that showcases a collection of clothing which is challenging the contemporary aesthetical and functional demands on women of a specific kind – those strong women who project personalized appeal and have a strong individualized presence within the complex social environment that we exist in at the beginning of the 21st century. The collection is organized in the style of FEMME FATALE and contrasting black, white and red forms that have subjected to the deconstructive plastic potential of the pleat.
Participating actresses:
Maya Bezhanska
Adriana Naydenova
Linda Rouseva
Paraskeva Dzhoukelova
Kasiel Noah Asher
Stefania Koleva
Ernestina Shinova
Emanuela Shkodreva
Teodora Douhovnikova
Biliana Petrinska
“The "Theater Girls" performance by Mariela Gemisheva won the hearts of the audience. The designer had invited the artist-drummer Edmond Demirdjian for a live session as well. One after the other the famous actresses were walking out on stage against the backdrop of his improvisations. Each one presented a specific female character with the appropriately designed clothing outfit. The show had a strong effect reminiscent of “The Ball”, the brilliant film by Ettore Scola”.
Desi Todorova, fashion critic
Photography: Valentina Petrova
SPIDER HOUSE represents its Summer 2007 Collection of… parachutes. The designer’s class realized the idea and transformed parachutes into summer clothing, following the Gemisheva trademark for fashion and style. The Mariela Gemisheva brand stands for clothes that can think, clothes that work with symbols, and clothes that have the dual nature of being absent and present, being here and there, in and out of the body, and in and out of oneself.
The parachute pattern is also a cobweb. As it is magically turned into practical summer clothing, it retains a memory of the symbolic and dream-like meshwork of lines, figures, legends and feelings. The spiders are two fold creatures: they live in the corners of the house, on the edge of the visible space, and yet, they extend and open this space by spinning their webs on places abandoned.
The spiders are also creatures of symbols. They would weave into their shapely web the sun, the balance, the harmony they symbolize. They stand for fertility and carry predominantly female features.
A spider is the centre of the Earth, slowly parachuting down the air, descending as if coming from nowhere.
Vladya Mihaylova
The parachute pattern is also a cobweb. As it is magically turned into practical summer clothing, it retains a memory of the symbolic and dream-like meshwork of lines, figures, legends and feelings. The spiders are two fold creatures: they live in the corners of the house, on the edge of the visible space, and yet, they extend and open this space by spinning their webs on places abandoned.
The spiders are also creatures of symbols. They would weave into their shapely web the sun, the balance, the harmony they symbolize. They stand for fertility and carry predominantly female features.
A spider is the centre of the Earth, slowly parachuting down the air, descending as if coming from nowhere.
Vladya Mihaylova
CONTEMPLATION IN BLUE. LADY'S BOUDOIR IN THE COLORS OF WATER
Photography: Angel Tzvetanov
Photography: Angel Tzvetanov
On the eve of November 1st 2004 Mariela Gemisheva, the artist notorious for her radical interventions in Bulgarian fashion design, is presenting her performance titled "Fish Party". It happens in a small gallery space that is defined both as elitist and meant for a liberated contemporary actions.
Mariela Gemisheva is once again confronting the audience with her view on femininity. In her works as well as in life actually, the quintessence of the feminine is not only the body. The atmosphere, the symbolism, the tradition are all playing distinct roles... The artist is handling the whole spectrum of possibilities while braking it down to the “obvious” color, taste, and smell. Then she is adding the accessories that are actually metaphors – just think of her fish-related works. One of them started from a collection of ethnographic essays – the “Hello, Girls!” (1997) performance, another one – with fish in the hair (1998).
The fish, the real fish (and its smell) is now participating in the performance right from the invitation card. However, it leaves the materialization of the vulgar and erotic folklore, which claims that women smell of fish, and ends up in the frying pans of the dressed up models, these dream objects of the victorious contemporary femininity. What does Mariela Gemisheva actually want? The super-models becoming earthly creatures and serving frayed fish, or the fish becoming a constant accessory of haut-couture?
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Mariela Gemisheva is once again confronting the audience with her view on femininity. In her works as well as in life actually, the quintessence of the feminine is not only the body. The atmosphere, the symbolism, the tradition are all playing distinct roles... The artist is handling the whole spectrum of possibilities while braking it down to the “obvious” color, taste, and smell. Then she is adding the accessories that are actually metaphors – just think of her fish-related works. One of them started from a collection of ethnographic essays – the “Hello, Girls!” (1997) performance, another one – with fish in the hair (1998).
The fish, the real fish (and its smell) is now participating in the performance right from the invitation card. However, it leaves the materialization of the vulgar and erotic folklore, which claims that women smell of fish, and ends up in the frying pans of the dressed up models, these dream objects of the victorious contemporary femininity. What does Mariela Gemisheva actually want? The super-models becoming earthly creatures and serving frayed fish, or the fish becoming a constant accessory of haut-couture?
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Mariela Gemisheva works as an artist and fashion designer in Sofia, the city where she was born, in a society – that of Bulgaria – in which concepts such as glamour and fashion were alien for many years. And yet Mariela has turned this situation into an important opportunity to work on Fashion as an abstract concept, as pure expressive research, free of all prejudice. A world in which the final objective is not so much (or at least not only) the mass production and marketing of clothes. Her creations are in fact full critical analyses of the implicit codes of fashion and of its unspoken preconceptions.
Yet they always have all the wearability of “real” clothes, and indeed the artist has twice received the Golden Needle Award for avant-garde fashion from the Bulgarian Fashion Academy.
At the GAS Art Gallery, the artist is showing her Fashion Fire video installation, a performance put on in the courtyard of the Fire and Emergency Safety Service in Sofia.
The fashion show, which starts out as a normal parade of models on the catwalk (and the first model makes us think it will be no more than a routine show) gradually takes on a different overtone: with the same composure as during the show, and betraying only a slight indication of ironic maliciousness, they unveil themselves and throw their clothes (designed by Mariela) into the fire.
With this cathartic gesture, the artist focuses her attention – and the reference is clear in the subtitle of the video, The nice thing of one decent beauty queen – on the liberation of Fashion from the canons and unwritten rules that regulate its mechanisms.
In the intentions of the artist, the dress is no more than a supposition, a code to express the personality of the individual, a balanced compromise between freedom of expression and social conventions. When it no longer lives up to these premises, it is deprived of its function. For the artist, the garments in this collection, which are singularly romantic and coy, represent a model of womanhood that is now a thing of the past and yet still highly approved of by social codes: a model we must free ourselves from, both as a symbol and in practice.
From “art objects”, the models become “art subjects”, with their own autonomy – even as they carry out the will of the designer-artist – the young priestesses of a purifying rite: each one burns her dress as she personally deems fit.
Unlike Vanessa Beecroft’s feminine figures, which are dehumanised presences inspired by aestheticism and portrayed in aseptic, alienated poses, Mariela’s models express feelings of ironic rebellion and active refusal, by no means devoid of a certain dose of maliciousness. To some extent, they also regain possession of their femininity: they bashfully cover their breasts, so their nudity is not brazenly exhibited. In their act, played out to the sound of music, the ceremony of the fashion show takes place in reverse, accompanied by a conclusion that is equally symbolic and surreal: in the final appearance, when stepping out to the customary applause of the public, the designer burns the dress that had opened the parade. This is the most romantic and languorous – and the only one to have been initially spared – thus confirming the idea of a destructive yet liberating will. In her mock rescue by a fireman, it is herself that the artist ironically saves.
In the Out of Myself series of self-portraits, it is again the artist – in a shrewd realisation of her own ability to mutate – who bears witness to the infinite possibilities that Fashion. This is once again viewed as a potential means for expression that is free from regulations, conventions and rules imposed by society. A means that is conceded to the individual.
Elena Inchingolo
Paola Stropiana
Video stills: Kalin Serapionov
Yet they always have all the wearability of “real” clothes, and indeed the artist has twice received the Golden Needle Award for avant-garde fashion from the Bulgarian Fashion Academy.
At the GAS Art Gallery, the artist is showing her Fashion Fire video installation, a performance put on in the courtyard of the Fire and Emergency Safety Service in Sofia.
The fashion show, which starts out as a normal parade of models on the catwalk (and the first model makes us think it will be no more than a routine show) gradually takes on a different overtone: with the same composure as during the show, and betraying only a slight indication of ironic maliciousness, they unveil themselves and throw their clothes (designed by Mariela) into the fire.
With this cathartic gesture, the artist focuses her attention – and the reference is clear in the subtitle of the video, The nice thing of one decent beauty queen – on the liberation of Fashion from the canons and unwritten rules that regulate its mechanisms.
In the intentions of the artist, the dress is no more than a supposition, a code to express the personality of the individual, a balanced compromise between freedom of expression and social conventions. When it no longer lives up to these premises, it is deprived of its function. For the artist, the garments in this collection, which are singularly romantic and coy, represent a model of womanhood that is now a thing of the past and yet still highly approved of by social codes: a model we must free ourselves from, both as a symbol and in practice.
From “art objects”, the models become “art subjects”, with their own autonomy – even as they carry out the will of the designer-artist – the young priestesses of a purifying rite: each one burns her dress as she personally deems fit.
Unlike Vanessa Beecroft’s feminine figures, which are dehumanised presences inspired by aestheticism and portrayed in aseptic, alienated poses, Mariela’s models express feelings of ironic rebellion and active refusal, by no means devoid of a certain dose of maliciousness. To some extent, they also regain possession of their femininity: they bashfully cover their breasts, so their nudity is not brazenly exhibited. In their act, played out to the sound of music, the ceremony of the fashion show takes place in reverse, accompanied by a conclusion that is equally symbolic and surreal: in the final appearance, when stepping out to the customary applause of the public, the designer burns the dress that had opened the parade. This is the most romantic and languorous – and the only one to have been initially spared – thus confirming the idea of a destructive yet liberating will. In her mock rescue by a fireman, it is herself that the artist ironically saves.
In the Out of Myself series of self-portraits, it is again the artist – in a shrewd realisation of her own ability to mutate – who bears witness to the infinite possibilities that Fashion. This is once again viewed as a potential means for expression that is free from regulations, conventions and rules imposed by society. A means that is conceded to the individual.
Elena Inchingolo
Paola Stropiana
Video stills: Kalin Serapionov
It’s hard to understand women… It is hard for man as well as for women themselves… It is even harder to understand artists… Thus, to understand a female artist is doubly hard. On top of that, the artist Mariela Gemisheva is a fashion designer… And fashion is about personality expressed through clothing. The premise is that cloths are an adjustment to personality because cloths are masks. There are endless possible variations of personality through clothing. But how to express a personality that is hard to understand to begin with? The personality of a female artist of fashion design who is used to using other people to express her vision and ultimately, personality? The other people are the models in a fashion show. They are adjusting their own personalities in order to reveal the “personality” of the cloths they are presenting to the public and thus are expressing the personality of the artist who has designed the cloths… Here the equation becomes much too complicated.
To make things easier Mariela Gemisheva establishes collaborative partnership with the male gaze, personified in the artist/photographer Danail Shturbanov, in the newest project “Out of Myself”. Theory says that the male gaze is an oppressive instrument of patriarchal signification even when used as a tool for identification through reflection. Here it becomes a constructive instrument for portraiture of a personality that is the process of finding out about herself. The male gaze here is not just reflecting but is constructing the personality of the “model”. Not only that, Mariela has “offered” herself as a model to the male gaze of Danail Shturbanov and the male gaze is willingly imposing itself onto the submissive “model”... The creative interaction of these two partners, a voyeur and an exhibitionist (although one is never quite sure who is whom…), is molding out various characters and personalities that are marking the stages in a process of “going out of myself”. And while the female partner obviously has a hunger for trying out various personalities, the male partner is having a hard time to trigger, follow and ultimately, satisfy the never-ending shifts in the female guises.
When one is trying to understand women, people say, one is reaching the realization that women are multifaceted human beings, constantly shifting between different roles and “personalities”, constantly unsatisfied with who they are, with whatever, whoever and mainly with themselves… The woman, the unsatisfied female artist of fashion design, is wearing her own cloths that are meant for entirely different people, in order to satisfy her wish for clarity and stability of identity. And the drama is that she is failing… She doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind about what she really is. But neither is able to do so the male gaze of the interacting photographer who is taking obvious pleasure in being “along for the ride” without making any final visual conclusions about the “model”. Is she the tramp, the she-boy, the wicked witch from the fairytales turned young, the femme fatale, the artist as a director, the visionary, the diva, the unmarried “housewife, the vamp, the water (fish) carrier from the history of art with the numberless paintings, the ugly duckling from still other fairytales, the anti-Paris or is she (rather, are they…?) just a player(s) in the game of difference and identity?
She doesn’t know but he doesn’t know either and the creative tension of this reciprocal insecurity has produced a splendidly baroque group of visual works. The video tape documenting the interactive photographing/modeling sessions of “going out of my(your)self” is as much part of the story as are the intricate make-up and hair-dressing interventions. At the end one is left convinced that “Out of Myself” becomes “out of thy-self, your-self, him/her-self” and all possible shades of interaction between the self and the other. It turns out that finding out about oneself is actually a group project, or how many people does Mariela Gemisheva need to find out who she actually is? Maybe all of us…?
Iara Boubnova
Luchezar Boyadjiev
To make things easier Mariela Gemisheva establishes collaborative partnership with the male gaze, personified in the artist/photographer Danail Shturbanov, in the newest project “Out of Myself”. Theory says that the male gaze is an oppressive instrument of patriarchal signification even when used as a tool for identification through reflection. Here it becomes a constructive instrument for portraiture of a personality that is the process of finding out about herself. The male gaze here is not just reflecting but is constructing the personality of the “model”. Not only that, Mariela has “offered” herself as a model to the male gaze of Danail Shturbanov and the male gaze is willingly imposing itself onto the submissive “model”... The creative interaction of these two partners, a voyeur and an exhibitionist (although one is never quite sure who is whom…), is molding out various characters and personalities that are marking the stages in a process of “going out of myself”. And while the female partner obviously has a hunger for trying out various personalities, the male partner is having a hard time to trigger, follow and ultimately, satisfy the never-ending shifts in the female guises.
When one is trying to understand women, people say, one is reaching the realization that women are multifaceted human beings, constantly shifting between different roles and “personalities”, constantly unsatisfied with who they are, with whatever, whoever and mainly with themselves… The woman, the unsatisfied female artist of fashion design, is wearing her own cloths that are meant for entirely different people, in order to satisfy her wish for clarity and stability of identity. And the drama is that she is failing… She doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind about what she really is. But neither is able to do so the male gaze of the interacting photographer who is taking obvious pleasure in being “along for the ride” without making any final visual conclusions about the “model”. Is she the tramp, the she-boy, the wicked witch from the fairytales turned young, the femme fatale, the artist as a director, the visionary, the diva, the unmarried “housewife, the vamp, the water (fish) carrier from the history of art with the numberless paintings, the ugly duckling from still other fairytales, the anti-Paris or is she (rather, are they…?) just a player(s) in the game of difference and identity?
She doesn’t know but he doesn’t know either and the creative tension of this reciprocal insecurity has produced a splendidly baroque group of visual works. The video tape documenting the interactive photographing/modeling sessions of “going out of my(your)self” is as much part of the story as are the intricate make-up and hair-dressing interventions. At the end one is left convinced that “Out of Myself” becomes “out of thy-self, your-self, him/her-self” and all possible shades of interaction between the self and the other. It turns out that finding out about oneself is actually a group project, or how many people does Mariela Gemisheva need to find out who she actually is? Maybe all of us…?
Iara Boubnova
Luchezar Boyadjiev
An experimental fashion collection fpr 1998/99 concentrating on the lady's wedding dress. It is not interesting for me for its usual meaning - as a traditional costume at the end of a fashion show or as a mandatory uniform for a wedding ritual. The dress is necessary as a cult object, the way it exists in the minds of all women. The intervention in this dress constitutes a correction in its traditionality, which aims to challenge the sense of modernity just a year before year 2000. (M.G.)
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
Photography: Dimitar Dilkov
CULTURE NEWSPAPER
Issue 44/2439, Year L
Neither a White Cube, nor a Black Box. History in Present Tense
Sofia Art Gallery
November 7 - December 3, 2006
"Hello girls" - the 1997 performance of Mariela Gemisheva inaugurates a new attitude to the woman in our society. In a way it is the retold version of a cynical anecdote about the blind man, who used to recognize women by their smell. The author makes the provocatively dressed top model with naked behind – the dream woman of every
man – to fry sprat in such a simplified way in a room, resembling a boudoir – the dream of every teen girl. The audience is not just invited to indulge in visual pleasure, so typical of art, but also to "consume" simultaneously, in order to interact further with culture in today's trendy way. In her latest installation the fashion designer changes again the traditional concept of ritual wear, such as bridal gowns – turning them into a doormat, inviting people from the dirty streets, to tramp on this symbol of purity and modesty.
Iara Boubnova
Photography: Valentina Petrova
Issue 44/2439, Year L
Neither a White Cube, nor a Black Box. History in Present Tense
Sofia Art Gallery
November 7 - December 3, 2006
"Hello girls" - the 1997 performance of Mariela Gemisheva inaugurates a new attitude to the woman in our society. In a way it is the retold version of a cynical anecdote about the blind man, who used to recognize women by their smell. The author makes the provocatively dressed top model with naked behind – the dream woman of every
man – to fry sprat in such a simplified way in a room, resembling a boudoir – the dream of every teen girl. The audience is not just invited to indulge in visual pleasure, so typical of art, but also to "consume" simultaneously, in order to interact further with culture in today's trendy way. In her latest installation the fashion designer changes again the traditional concept of ritual wear, such as bridal gowns – turning them into a doormat, inviting people from the dirty streets, to tramp on this symbol of purity and modesty.
Iara Boubnova
Photography: Valentina Petrova
