Daniel Bozhkov: Republik of Perpetual Reconstitution and Rebuild

On view through April 25, 2010

Opening: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 3 - 6 pm
5:00 pm: Republik of Perpetual Reconstitution and Rebuild presents “Composition for Viola, House Painters and Well Tempered Juke Box”
Music: Cello Suite #6 in D Johann Sebastian Bach
Viola: Sam Quintal
House Painters: Richard Simmons, Emil Bakalli, and Daniel Bozhkov

Daniel Bozhkov has found inspiration in the history of the museum and its physical site. The New York City Building was originally built for the 1939-40 World’s Fair and housed Queens’ only ice rink until the QMA’s expansion began in September 2009. Bricks, books, and antiquated office furniture and equipment salvaged from the rink will make up Republik of Perpetual Reconstitution and Rebuild in which Michelangelo’s Pieta meets Moby Dick in a forest of metal lockers full of visions. Working with participants in the QMA’s New New Yorkers program-the museum’s educational outreach initiative for recent immigrant residents of Queens-the artist will create a hub of unlikely encounters between histories, futures, cultures, and memories; and between visitors and participants. The project will develop and evolve over the exhibition period, and is meant to serve as a rebuilding platform for human exchange and cultural collaboration in the community of Queens.

Daniel Bozhkov is a Bulgarian-born conceptual artist based in New York City. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, and completed his M.F.A. at Hunter College, CUNY. He employs variety of media, from fresco to performance and video, and works with professionals from different fields, using different strategies to activate the public space. Bozhkov enters the worlds of genetic science, department mega-stores, world-famous tourist-sites, as an amateur intruder/visitor who also functions as a producer of new strains of meaning into seemingly closed systems.

Daniel Bozhkov’s participation in Launch Pad, an ongoing series of site-specific and socially collaborative artist residencies and projects at the Queens Museum of Art, is funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, and Cowles Charitable Trust. Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and new York State Council on the Arts.