Edge Group / Projects Opus Probect 93 exhibition 1993

Text by Nadya Genova Opus Probect 93 exhibition

"Opus Probect 93" features six members of the Edge Group. As with all previous projects, again the group works out every detail of the organization, implementation and the financial provision of the project. The Edges find like-minded people and support in state-owned enterprises that live their last moments before privatization. They receive for free dozens of wooden frames that are used as the basis for furniture doors, four beds from a furniture exhibition, construction scaffolding, hundreds of kilograms of apples and a free access to the hall of the Union of Plovdiv Artists.

See video from the project

The beginning is simply a conversation in which a strong match of attitudes, feelings and intentions is established. Their exchange is giving and taking of cues, narratives, ready-made solutions and the pleasure of this shared game is carried over into the materialization of the ideas. “Opus Probect 93” is a symphony of the appropriation of an object – turning it into a "Probect". Against the background of numerous semantic interpretations of the apple as a symbol, in this case the authors do not fix a specific one. The apple is present in different forms – plaster casts, real fruits dipped in paint, photocopies of apples placed directly on the glass top of a copier, drawings on paper. The goal is to test materiality in different variants. Thus the Object becomes the Probect of the Edge Group.

Projects

Symbols and Signs exhibition 1990

Black Happening eco-action 1990

Root High in the Sky action 1990

Large Photography exhibition 1991

Bright Light action 1991

The ideal project 1992

The Overt Breakfast action 1992

The Brick action 1992

The Body of Water action 1993

Opus Probect 93 exhibition 1993

Edge in the Back instalation 1993

Apple metamorphoses

The placement of the objects in the hall draws a circle forming an interior space as a stage where the viewer is placed. The first object is a long line of plaster casts of an apple, pinned on a white wall, just below the eye level. The alternation of essentially the same plaster model reaches the wall with real apples, where the obvious uniqueness of the real fruit is imposed. From the ceiling to the floor, close to each other, apples are hanging on short strings. The sonority of this object is like a clock that moves at the rate of the withering. Arranged on the next wall there is a group of 40 colour prints from a photocopier. An apple appears in different “close-ups”, placed either directly on the glass top of the machine or on a drapery. The next object occupies the entire area of the largest wall in the gallery. 120 equal-sized drawings on paper are placed at equal distances. In general, they have the effect of a single object, and in detail, each drawing is the work of an individual artist. The apple is also a central compositional element here. Up to this point all objects are placed on the plane of the walls in the hall. From this particular two-dimensionality, four beds and a metal frame lowered from the glass ceiling enter the space. Apples dipped in white paint hang on long strings from the frame. The threads are of different lengths so that the apples, close together, describe a wavy line. A large wooden bed covered with red silk stands in each of the four corners of the hall. These bright coloured spots are symbolic doors to exit the circle closed by the apple portraits. Their meaningful presence is to put an infinity sign on the line of apple metamorphoses.