I met a famous Bulgarian installation artist named Nedko Solakov at an international Art festival held in a city where I used to live in Korea.
After introducing myself to him briefly, I asked, “Where is your art work?” He pointed to the ceiling of the exhibition room. There were two huge trees were dangling. He said the trees would be used for the material for his art work. I realized he was the artist mentioned in a paper that I read. The article said, “…We had difficulty in finding materials that met some artists’ request such as huge trees or hundreds of snakes. The artist asking for big trees assured us not to damage any parts of roots of the trees. It was very hard to find almost the same size of trees each of which weighs 1 ton….”
Next day when I met him again, I saw the upper part of the trees were gone and left only the roots hung on the ceiling. He added some colorful strips of cloths around the roots.
I couldn’t help asking, “Can I ask what it means?” He was smiling and said, “Have you thought about what is going on under the huge trees? I’d like to let people think about something not usual. I help them imagine and dream up improbable stories. It’s like Alice’s Wonderland, very mysterious, nobody would know.”
Even though I understood his explanation about his art work, I was still suspicious of his artistic ability.
