CHRONICLES OF A TRANSFORMATION

Icons with human bodies and insect heads, gold and spray paint, ritual and fetish, belief and decay — Anton Stoianov’s exhibition unfolds as a visual elegy for a world in flux, dissolving and being reborn.

Drawing on the legacy of Byzantine iconography and the pulse of Berlin’s subcultural landscape, Stoianov reimagines the icon as a conceptual space for reflecting on identity, memory, and vulnerability. The insect here is not a symbol of weakness, but a sign of resilience and an alternative order — one that stands outside the boundaries of human dominance and control.

The Icons series, created for this exhibition, offers a world where what is delicate proves enduring, and the past becomes a foundation for new possible ways of being.

Anton Stoianov studied at the National Academy of Art in Sofia and continued his education in 2001 at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 2006, he was an exchange student at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and in 2007 he graduated from the University of Arts, Berlin.

Anton Stoianov has participated in numerous group exhibitions, among others in the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg 2020; Galeria Leyendecker, Tenerife, 2023; SCOPE BLN, Berlin, 2023; Cu29, Plovdiv, 2023; 40 Years of Tom of Finland Foundation, Berghain, Berlin, 2024; Doza Gallery, Sofia Art Fair — and many others.

He has held solo exhibitions in FLUCA – Austrian Cultural Pavilion, Plovdiv European Capital of Culture 2019; Art Cologne 2018; Structura Gallery, Sofia 2019; EXILE, Vienna 2022; Gallery xavierlaboulbenne, Berlin 2018; and espace d'art contemporain 14N 61W, Fort de France, Martinique 2021. His work is part of the collection of Louis Vuitton, Paris.