Modern Art in Bulgaria: First Histories and Narratives Beyond the Paradigm of Modernity

Irina Genova has greatly contributed to the wider knowledge about Bulgarian art: thanks to her exhibitions, studies, texts, catalogues, books and lectures all over Europe and America, Bulgarian art - particularly from the first half of the XX century - was put in the European, first of all Balkan context, and was compared with similar phenomena in the region. To achieve this, Genova has also studied all the movements and major personalities from neighboring countries. By doing so, she has accumulated great knowledge and experience, and I am happy to say that she is surely one of the most informed, influential and best interpreters of the Balkan art scene in the 1920s and 1930s.
Genova is looking for similar ambiances, close poetics of various artists, their differences and oppositions, their encounters and communication in the last century so that her final results show high profile of an art historians approach and method of cultural studies. Her works are at the same time full of data and impregnated with theoretical and aesthetical points of views. This method of approach ensured her very high position in the international milieus: she is often invited to present her research in various conferences, seminars and symposia.