The Explorative and Investigative Art: Aesthetics of the Erased Reality | Lecture by Katerina Gachevska, PhD, on art, crime and the detective artist
2025.12.15
16 December 2025 (Tuesday), 1:30 pm
National Academy of Art, Atelier 7, 1 Shipka Street, Sofia
The lecture examines how trends in contemporary art function as an investigative practice that reconstructs events and data erased from public debate by the conjuncture of power. At the centre, is the figure of the detective artist, who collects fragments, traces and evidence to restore and interpret lost stories and stabilise the truth in today's era of artistically manipulated reality. Forensic methods in artistic practices, counter-archives and visual strategies that make the invisible visible and question the institutional regimes, which determine what can and what cannot be seen. The talk combines theory with concrete examples from activist artists and artistic collectives, emphasising the aesthetic and political function of art as a mediator between fact, visual mode, and interpretation of truth.