194:, both in Sofia. In interviews, Houben was asked to talk about the role of art in the age of digitalization and bitcoin. The mission of art "is in the statics - to stop the flying time, to talk with the past, and with the future," Tcherkelov stated. "To not turn into ephemera, unlike the built-in interchangeability of almost everything that surrounds us. In 25 years, artificial intelligence will make many professions redundant, but there will be room for traditional human activity that cannot be multiplied or created by robots."
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points to his arrival in New York as an immigrant, and his reliance on coins to make calls from payphones, as having "left with the feeling of communication," and that money is a component of expression. Cultural critic
Georgette Gouveia notes that Houben's aesthetic "is related to 20th-century Pop Art, but rather than focus on manufactured Pepsi-Cola or Brillo boxes as Warhol famously did, he focuses on the financial instruments that are engines of wealth."
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97:(Bulgarian: Хубен Черкелов; known as Houben R.T.; American, born in Bulgaria on January 23, 1970) is a painter and experimental artist who lives and works in New York. In his early photographs, film, and installations post-communist Bulgaria and Bulgarian art is a recurrent theme. In his more recent work, Tcherkelov paints images from American and other national currencies using
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From
November 2020 through March 2021, Houben held a solo show at the Museum of Humour and Satire in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. The museum director, Margarita Dorovska, described Houben's works as "beyond generous to the viewer" who is "compelled to move around and is yet never certain to have seen it all."
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During a solo show in Taiwan at InSian
Gallery, Houben explained the inspiration for his work: "Now I am in New York, where nothing is produced anymore. Only financial services remain. This is why I want to reflect this in my art. In a way, I am a traditional painter painting everything around me.
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Tcherkelov cites the panic in the
Bulgarian banking sector in the 1990s, which forced the government to devaluate the national currency, the Lev, by removing three zeroes, as the initial impetus that drove his consideration, from an aesthetic perspective, of the symbolic power of money. He also
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As art critic Xi Chen, in an introduction to the catalogue for this exhibit, states, "The artist, through the financial symbols inherent in currency—and the collective memory such symbols reflect—references the fluid exchange and translation between art and finance." For the same exhibit,
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writes of one of
Tcherkelov's paintings that "it seemed to explode with sheer exuberance." He continues: "We wonder how the artist trapped a living spirit inside the painting and yet maintained its happiness!".
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described Houben's oeuvre as a "global treasury" of images that "depict money as a phenomenon that is . . . reflective" requiring that the viewer "look beneath the surface of a thing."
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pointed to the moribund state of museums in
Bulgaria, grossly out-of-sync with the normal pace of events. Perhaps Tcherkelov's most well-known work from his series of interventions is
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in
Amsterdam with a grant from the Felix Meritis Foundation. Not until he arrived in New York City in 2000, however, did he begin to work exclusively using this technique. Art critic
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Tcherkelov's early works in Sofia analyze space and life structures in a society transitioning at once to a new social system and acclimating to the rapid pace of globalization.
366:"Show me the Money, the New Art of the Deal/the Art of the New Deal: Art and Money in Contemporary Culture." Lehman College Art Gallery. Exhibition Catalogue. June 3, 2019.
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160:(1998), a video that, with numerous art historical references, satirizes the affluence and decadence of the international film and music industry transferred to Sofia.
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Chen, Xi. The
Invisible Hand and its Handprint: The Substitution, Appropriation, and Encoding of Imagery in Houben Tcherkelov's "Currency". InSian Gallery. 2024.
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In order to experience Houben's works, "ne has to move, to change their stance, to exhaust the spatial relations, and there will still be an elusive remainder."
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Dorovska, Margarita. Forward and
Acknowledgements. Houben Tcherkelov: Why So Serious? Museum of Humour and Satire. 2020.
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http://diplomaticspectrum.com/en/bulgaria/culture/1030-worth-%E2%80%93-an-exhibition-of-houben-tcherkelov-in-sofia.html
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techniques. In all of his work the artist seeks to suggest the way in which symbolic images legitimize national power.
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http://www.economic.bg/bg/news/9/houben-tcherkelov-my-art-is-not-a-provocation-but-an-invitation-for-dialogue.html
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Viveros-Fauné, Christiane. The (Cultural) Currency Trader: The Art of Houben R. Tcherkelov. InSian
Gallery. 2024.
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Mircheva, Nevena. "Houben Tcherkelov: My art is not a provocation but an invitation for dialogue." Economic.bg.
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Heartney, Eleanor. Houben R. T.: Recent Paintings. Introduction. DTR Modern Galleries. Boston/Palm Beach. 2.
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https://sofiaglobe.com/2018/02/21/whats-on-exhibitions-tcherkelovs-120-bills-and-ushevs-in-the-mirror-dimly
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384:"What's On: Exhibitions Tcherkelov's '120 Bills' and Ushev's 'In the mirror, dimly.'" The Sofia Globe.
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http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/32578/genesis-breyer-p-orridge-in-new-york/?page=3
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Phillips, Christopher. "Report From Sofia: The View from Europe's Lower East Side."
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Balkanski, Kamen. "Houben Tcherkelov: Interventions in various fields of life".
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In 2011, Houben was selected to represent Bulgaria in the 54th Venice Biennale.
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396:"Worth - An Exhibition of Houben Tcherkelov in Sofia." Diplomatic Spectrum.
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Karadzhova, Lilyana. "I paint money, I do not print banknotes." Europost.
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Russeth, Andrew. "Genesis Breyer P-Orridge in New York." Artinfo.
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Bergamin, Luca. "L'Uomo Vogue." May–June 2011 (n. 421), p. 209.
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In February and March 2018, Houben held solo shows at the
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Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen. Berlin, Germany. 1997.
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L'Uomo Italian Vogue Article on 54th Venice Biennale
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Menschenbilder: Foto- und Videokunst aus Bulgarien.
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163:In 1995, Tcherkelov studied impasto painting with
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202:This is the influence of global finance."
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353:"I am not an elitist artist." Europost.
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355:http://www.europost.eu/article?id=4585
226:Houben R. T.: All About the Benjamins
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507:21st-century Bulgarian painters
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275:Seidl, Walter. "Reality Show."
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