Il dolce far niente

Exhibition
Il dolce far niente
KONSTANTIN KOSTOV
1 – 19 November 2022

Rakursi Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by the young artist Konstantin Kostov, of which he shares:

“There are moments when you take balance of the time that has passed. There is much to learn from the Italians, such as their “Art of doing nothing”, or as they call it: “Il dolce far niente”. What I want to present with my paintings is an irony, or maybe an observation on how we adapt for ourselves, absorb or understand such “art”. In our reality, doing nothing is most often associated with idleness and laziness. From the position of an artist, contemplation is not doing nothing, although it may seem so. I somehow long for those states and opportunities to contemplate for a long time, as the artists of the past used to do. But the current reality predisposes to a more fragmented, more dynamic insight, so rushed that somehow it does not reach those maturing moments that require more time.

We all experienced a catastrophe associated with many challenges, one of which was the long time spent in isolation. There we somehow began to return to our needs, to an understanding of time as ours, but also as lost to something else. It wasn’t “the art of doing nothing”, it was just doing things in other ways. I feel that this fragmentary perception of the last period was so contradictory and so extreme in position that it predisposed to an imbalance of the whole in which people lost themselves. So far, the pieces of acquired reality have ranged from hopelessness to success, from failure, loneliness to absolute euphoria. I asked myself: “Can I be skilled at doing nothing?” – the answer was precisely in this fragmentation, as an acquired sense of normality, which unexpectedly predisposed to the dream of a return to experienced wholeness.

The world is changing and we are constantly catching up, forgetting that we were the ones who dreamed of making it a better place. Perhaps by mastering ‘art’ like Il dolce far niente, we could regain our position as dreamers, and why not as creators of the new and forthcoming time.”

• 
• 
• 
•