Hypothetical Collaboration With Christo: and (Partially With) Jeanne-Claude

Writing these pages, I thought I could commemorate with them the six mount of the dead
of the artist and to leave a copy to the place where he lived in New York City. I pressed the bell
on the door, and a voice on the phone-system asked me to leave my pages in the post box.
Christo created his unique art there yesterday and now is gone. I admired him for fifty years and
missed the opportunity to face and tell him how much he was for me. It is so sad. Here is the note
I left in his post box next to Contemporary Art Seminar text.
Dear Christo,
My full name is Nedko Christov Bucev. Christov comes from after Christo, my father's name. My
son's name is Christo as well. As you know, the name Christo means Jesus in our lands. Directly
and symbolically, my name is related to you. You are Christo (Jesus) of my life. You are my family.
Sorry for missing you in person.
Nedko
Hypothetical Collaboration
(during the last fifty years)
with Christo
and (partially with) Jeanne-Claude
Everything started when at the end of the 70s when I was studying art in a communist Bulgarian
high school. I met for the first time with the art of Christo. His niece, who lived in Sofia, had a
collection of artist catalogs. Students talked about him as a god in the art school, but nobody knew
what he was doing. His art was a tabu because he was a defector of Socialism and the realism
doctrine. For me, he was an example of a successful contemporary artist. I love his statement: "I
will not give up one centimeter of my freedom for anything. I like to be free, to be irrational with
no justification for what I like to do."
I admire his scale, the complexity of the realization, and the way of funding. I'm listing below
some of my artworks that had been influenced by Christo's land art projects.
Seven talks with a flower is a performance presented at The Imaginary Temple, a traveling through
Europe exhibition curated by Plamena Racheva. I the ruins of a medieval monastery near the Black
Sea, I walled up myself in one of the hermit's cells for seven days only with water and bread. From
the inside of the cell, behind a stone wall, I was listening to the audience. People came and talked
and said everything to me. They were sharing their stories about love, family, politics, gossip, sex
affairs, and anything of their life without knowing me. I was listening during the day and thinking
about everything during the night. I do not have any contact with the rest of the world but the
audience's voices behind the wall.
Iron Curtain-1962 Seven talks with a flower-2006

Improving the landscape was created in 2009 for the traveling art exhibition titled "Reflections of
Tomorrow" curated by Art Today Association in Austria, Greece and Bulgaria. The artwork
consisted in trimming about 100 trees of visible from the windows of the Orien Express train* r
from Paris to Istanbul. During the time when the train was passing near the artwork this short note
was distributed among the passengers and a record with the same content translated in six
languages was played in the train audio system.
Dear Orient Express passengers,

In response to our acceptance in the European Union, we the Bulgarian people are pleased to
show you our gratitude with improving everything possible and to reach your expectations.
Please, take a look through the windows and enjoy the Improving of our landscape. We want to
welcome you and honor you with our improved natural beauty. We hope you will be intrigued and
will stop for a visit to this forgotten part of the continent. We honored you improving every single
tree and bush a in our land to please and satisfy you. We want to give you a good reason to spent
some money in our farms and hostels. Thank you in advance for accepting this gesture of our
hospitality. United in Diversity!
The Bulgarians
(The work is about the way poor countries change their traditions and natural conditions to attract
the interest of the rich part of the world and how it is not changing anything.)
Wrapped Trees-1998 and Improving the landscape -2009

White Flags was a outdoor installation presented in the 2004 edition of Biennial of Varna, Bulgaria
with the title August in Art and curator Svilen Serafimoff. Two 100 feet white fabric triangles
hanged from the bridge Asparuhovo closed to eight hours the entrance of commercial and military
port of Varna during the first NATO maneuvers in Bulgaria. In fact for first time since the 1944
others than Soviet troops were present in the national waters of Black Sea. The flags had at the
bottom 75 pounds metal elements which practically make impossible the transit under the bridge
of any large ship because the radar systems could tangled with the white flags. During the action
me and the volunteers who worked on the project had to disappear from the city for few days. The
police cut the sustaining robs, the flags sang in the water and were caught by the water patrols.
Hopefully with the help of the curator Serafimoff and the Biennial administration we were not
legally charged.
Valley Curtain- 1972 White Flags-2004
10. 2020
Nedko Bucev MFA, Fall 2020 Contemporary Art Seminar- Professor Midori Yoshimoto

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Writing these pages, I thought I could commemorate with them the six mount of the dead

Iron Curtain-1962 Seven talks with a flower-2006

Dear Orient Express passengers,

Wrapped Trees-1998 and Improving the landscape -2009

Valley Curtain- 1972 White Flags-2004

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