Born in 1954
In the Shadow of Totalitarian Art.
I was raised and taught to give of myself.
I was taught to sacrifice my talent for need of totalitarian art.
As were the ancient gladiators, I was sacrificed. Society wanted blood and received it.
My life was deliberately wasted and my creativity irrevocably tainted. My work has become my only fight.
But if you have already been marked a victim, you remain a victim to the end, even after generation and political systems have changed.
And today I still feel the "chilling breeze of the Shadow." And today my art is my only resistance.
So I say: Spartak Dermendjiev refuses to rehabilitate and revive totalitarian art.
PARIS
is the ancient hero who kidnapped Helen
and caused the Trojan War.
PARIS is also my artistic name which I use to sign my series of Venuses from the 90s of the last century.
I felt inconvenience to sign these crazy sculptures and drawings with my birth, real name Spartacus Spartak Dermendjiev, and the pseudonym Paris came to help me.
My Venuses, moreover, contrary to my opinion, were described as erotic art.
I did not agree this whole world of feelings, emotions and frustrations to be called erotic art. Maybe that's why I called them Cynical.
Spartak Dermendjiev 2000
Spartak Dermendjiev (born 1954 in Sofia), known by his artistic name Paris, is a multidisciplinary artist who works with figurative sculpture, portrait and digital and virtual installation. In 1982 Dermendjiev graduated from the National Academy of Art in sculpture. Member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists – UBA since 1985. He lives and works in Sofia.
Dermendjiev’s exhibitions have social messages like “The Sin as an Official Ideology”, “The Human and the Society as a Two Way Street”, “The art creates idealists, whereas the life kills them”, “Cynicism, born out of despair and impasse - a refuge for the average person”, “Replacing truth and the Social Engineering”, “Slander as the main building block of society” and others. The vulgar and the cynical become the basic aesthetic categories in the art of Dermendjiev.
What Others Say About Spartak Dermendjiev
"Actually, it seems to me that Dermendjiev's sculpture does not need to be defended simply because it has reached such a degree of plastic expression which itself answers all. Dermendjiev is a sculptor of the feminine body in a state of physiological insanity." - Ruen Ruenov (1999)
“Spartak Dermendjiev is a sculptor who does not place himself over the object. He has a marked mimetic, emotional and sincere sense of it. His style is not a precondition, but is a consequence of the artist's dialogue with visibility. It is this live, somehow chaotic, sensual attitude that makes his pursuits successful.” - Ruen Ruenov (2001)
"The least that could be said about Spartak is that he is consistent in his artistic interest. From the virtuoso of the exquisite sculpture, through the master of the artistic drawing, the hunter of the erratic ego of the eternal lad and the infamous destroyer of aesthetic and verbal norms, today he returns again with the challenge of surprise, in a completely unexpected direction ... " - Philip Zidarov (2003)
"Most of Dermendjiev's work are often described as pornographic. The truth is that the "stripping” in his case should be understood as an openness, which addresses avoided themes and images. In fact, the sculptor always comes from a deeper philosophical layer to express his attitude to society and, in particular, to modern man. Brilliant as a plasticist, he is not satisfied with the simple reflection of reality, but always seeks to express some social message. " - Svetla Petkova (2014)
"It seems that the sculptor was doomed to fight endless battles even when he was given his birth name (Spartak is Spartacus in Bulgaria, Ed.). And while he later adopted the more peaceful alias Paris, Spartak remains a solitary gladiator ". - Mariana Svetoslavova (2015)
"Spartak Dermendjiev is an outstanding Bulgarian sculptor working on the edge of “the conceptual” thought process, but never a hundred percent in it. Irony and self-irony are his main weapon. If you like the metaphor “The Shakespeare of the Form”, then you have understood it." - Svetlozar Petkov (2018)