Biography
Iara Boubnova is curator, art critic, and founding Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art – Sofia. Since 1997, she has been a lecturer at the New Bulgarian University, Visual Arts and Communication Department. Born in Moscow in 1961 and graduated from the Moscow State University in 1983. As an independent curator, she has curated over 25 individual and group shows in Bulgaria, where she lives since 1984 and abroad. Her most important projects include: ‘Locally Interested’, Sofia, ‘Station Sofia’ (together with Luchezar Boyadjiev) in ‘Translocation’, Vienna (both 1999); ‘Bulgariaavantgarde. Contending Forces II’, Munich (1998); ‘The Prying Game’ (together with the first-year students of the Centre for Curatorial Studies, Bard College), USA; ‘Menschenbilder. Foto- and Videokunst aus Bulgarien’, Berlin; ‘ARS EX NATIO. Made in BG’, Plovdiv, Bulgaria and ‘Erato’s Version’ (both together with Maria Vassileva) – all in 1997; ‘Bulgarian Glimpse Show’, Moscow (1996); ‘In Search of Self-Reflection’, Plovdiv (1994); ‘Object Bulgarian Style’, Sofia (1993). She curated and organized Bulgarian participation at the: 48 Biennale di Venezia (together with Nedko Solakov, the participating artist in 1999); the 3rd Biennial in Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia (1997); the 4th St. Petersburg Biennial (1996); the 4th Istanbul Biennial (1995); the 22nd Sao Paulo Biennial (1994) and the Tirana Biennial (2001). She was the co-curator of the ‘Reconstructions’, the 4th Biennial in Cetinje, Montenegro, Yugoslavia and of the ‘Boundless Borders’ Public Project, travelling 2002. In 1999 she participated in The Getty Summer Institute for Art History and Cultural Studies at Rochester University, USA and in 1997 she was an Arts Link Program visiting lecturer at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, USA. In 1995 and 1994 she had fellowships to study Management of Art Institutions in Vienna and London. Iara Boubnova was a Getty Foundation’s Grant Program Fellow.
