"Perfect Day: Stefan Nikolaev"
2002-12-13 until 2002-01-30
Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
Dublin, , IE Ireland

Perfect Day, the debut Irish exhibition by Stefan Nikolaev, features new and selected works by this Paris-based Bulgarian artist.  Nikoleav's work can be characterised primarily by temporal concerns and a crucial element of his practice is his method of seeming to manipulate time by presenting moments from everyday life in a concentrated form.  

The presence of time as a theme in the work is made clear in Nikolaev's large wall text for Temple Bar Gallery, in which time is marked out in a short narrative by the  inclusion of digital clocks at key intervals.  His recurring focus on the everyday is evident in a work such as Pall Mall, a video showing close-up images of two people smoking and shaving.  In another work, the installation 'Holidays from Myself', an element of everyday life is made to seem both familiar and strange — here a domestic shower unit is raised several feet above the floor and from within the artist's voice can be heard singing David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' and Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day'.  'Holidays from Myself' was previously included in A Shot in the Head, the summer group exhibition at London's Lisson gallery in 2000.

Stefan Nikolaev has lived and worked in Paris since since 1988. He is the founder of GLASSBOX, one of the first contemporary artist-run spaces in Paris.

IMAGE:
Stefan Nikolaev
Pall Mall, 1999,
detail from double video projection

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Ireland

Other Important Exhibitions in Dublin