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An Afternoon at Burggarten #2

An Afternoon at Burggarten #2 © EP 2021

Bulgaria, 2007

Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm

signed, dated and titled (on the reverse)

Purchased from the artist in 2011


Vasilena Gankovska re-envisages and reconceives urban landscapes and landmarks from an aesthetic but also socio-cultural point of view. The artist undertook her bachelor’s in Fine Arts at the Academy of fine arts Vienna and her master at the National Art Academy Sofia. Gankovska’s corpus and aesthetic research is a study of citified life and spaces and the way people use and appropriate them. This is done by related urban contexts with other fields, forms of media and culture, such as architecture, (fashion) design, art and ideology, primarily in the built-up environment of the former Eastern Bloc countries. This urban enquiry is complemented by her reflections on the genesis and evolution of the pop and visual culture in the post-socialist society, namely via the influence of the TV series formats (soap operas, telenovelas, reality TV). Telenovela and Urban Melodramas, projects shown respectively in Vienna and in Sofia in 2008, were the conclusions of this research. An Afternoon at Burggarten #2 is representative of Gankovska graphic eye, her capacity to reduce complex architectonic features and backdrops to polished lines, grids within and upon which human social life and ideology is projected. In her exhibitions, Gankovska often provides the original photograph on which her drawings and paintings are based for comparison, rendering the uniqueness of her vision ever more apparent.
TIMELINE
Vasilena GANKOVSKA : An Afternoon at Burggarten #2, 2007 - On display in Parlamentarium, Brussels

An Afternoon at Burggarten #2

Vasilena GANKOVSKA

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  • 2001

    National parliaments exhibiton in Brussels and Strasbourg. This exhibition was created at the initiative of President Gil Robles and was officially opened on 17 December 2001 by the then President Nicole Fontaine. It consists of works of art donated or loaned by 15 national parliaments.

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  • 2007

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    Hans-Gert Pöttering served as President of the European Parliament from 2007 to 2009.


    Acquisition programme

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Cyprus, Czechia and Estonia following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006


    Enlargement: Bulgaria, Romania

    Bulgaria and Romania join the EU.

  • 2008

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Hungary and Latvia following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006.

  • 2009

    2009 European elections

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    Jerzy Buzek

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    Acquisition programme

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Poland and Lithuania following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006


    Lisbon Treaty

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  • 2010

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006

  • 2011

    Acquisition programme

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Bulgaria and Romania following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006


    (…) artistic trades constitute one of the pillars on which our cultural heritage and our economy rest (…) their continuity must therefore be safeguarded by means of appropriate mechanisms for passing on knowledge and skills, as emphasised in Parliament’s resolution of 10 April 2008 on cultural industries in Europe (…)

    European Parliament resolution of 12 May 2011 on unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries (2010/2156(INI))

    Establishment of a temporary rotating exhibition to mark rotating EU presidencies, starting from January 2011 (…)

    The exhibition would be organised by a rotating system following the changing of the EU presidencies. Every six months, the Artistic Committee would decide on a selection of 8 to 10 works of art from the Member State concerned(…) GEDA D (2010) 41679

  • 2012

    Martin Schulz

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    Art@Europarl

    The Art@Europarl exhibition presents a small selection of 27 works, mostly paintings, by artists from 27 EU countries at the Parlamentarium, the Parliament’s visitors center. It’s the first time that the general public has direct access to part of the collection.


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    Acquisition programme

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Croatia following the Bureau decision from 13 December 2006.


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    Antonio Tajani

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  • 2019

    David Sassoli

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    Value of culture

    (…) the intrinsic value of culture and of artistic expression should always be preserved and promoted and that artistic creation is at the heart of cooperation projects. European Parliament legislative resolution of 28 March 2019 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the Creative Europe programme (2021 to 2027) and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1295/2013 (COM(2018)0366 – C8 0237/2018 – 2018/0190(COD))


    2019 European elections

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  • 2021

    Acquisition programme of works of art from Germany, Poland, Spain and Sweden following the Bureau decision from 25 November 2019