Rise to Score

Inspired by mundane objects and situations in his production of sculptural objects, site-specific installations, photographs and drawings, Pravdoliub Ivanov starts from ideas that oscillate between everyday life and fantasy while resisting definition in either genre. The unexpected and surprising encounters of materials, objects and situations that the artist brings together in his installations are not only humorous but also uncanny and confusing.

The objects that comprise "Rise to Score" can be recognised at first glance, yet are intertwined in a way that creates a strange, symbiotic relationship. A palm tree in a plastic pot appears to develop and grow upside down with its trunk running through a basketball hoop. Merging the palm tree – which could be interpreted as a geographical element symbolising the vegetation of the Eastern cityscape – with the hoop, an integral part of basketball, one of the most popular team sports in the US and Europe, the work establishes an extraordinary unity between these two geographically distant objects. Even though both retain their individual identities while entrapped by each other, they begin to take on other meanings depending on the particular viewer, and one’s experiences.