Polina Angelova is the author of PAMLAP – Polina Angelova Museum Live Art Performance. 

Polina Angelova Museum Live Art Performance took its first physical form on 7 February 2019 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a branch of the National Gallery of Bulgaria, as part of the opening of the “Do Not Forget” exhibition Polina Angelova curated and initiated the ‘Do Not Forget’ Exhibition to celebrate the 76th Anniversary of the Saving of the Bulgarian Jews during the Holocaust. The artist, David King Reuben created the painting called “Shades of Grey”, as a result of the main concept of the museum exhibition and in response to the theme of the Holocaust – the wider project the touring exhibition was part of. The concept and the development of performance elements are a result of Angelova’s research and interrogation of the Canon of Art History.

PAMLAP is a performance in which a piece of art is created in a museum or a venue as a result of the concept and the theme of an exhibition or a project. Historically, finished pieces in a museum have been selected by a curator or a body of museum staff. Pieces will have gone through a selection panel and institutional committees behind closed doors before it is given space in a museum.

The uniqueness of Polina Angelova Museum Live Art Performance is that the panels and committees are removed. The piece of art is created in a museum or a venue in response to the concept and the theme of the exhibition. The result of this performance is unique. The artist’s live performance work of art is part of a museum exhibition before it has gone through gatekeepers. The artist creates the piece in a specific time frame and within a specific museum or venue. For the whole time of the performance, the artist can be observed meaning that the visitors and the exhibition attendees witness a museum piece unfold in real time, reflecting on a specific subject.

The public has never had this much influence and power before. The exhibition visitors are usually the end of this process, rather than the evolution or the result of an original museum piece of art.

Polina Angelova’s personal curatorial choice of an artist to reflect on the exhibition and its concept has evolved into an institutional choice. The interactive experience for both the visitors and the artist and the resulting art piece is an amalgamation of the exhibition’s concept, the curator’s choice of an artist, the museum’s atmosphere, and the exhibition visitors’ engagement.

Polina Angelova Museum Live Art Performance is a new way of bringing a variety of artists including street artists and creatives who wouldn’t normally be included in an exhibition into a museum setting to create pieces of art for that venue. This unique, innovative, and original performance has the potential to break the Canon of Art History by making it more egalitarian and representative. 

In February 2019 Polina Angelova Museum Live Art Performance was copyright registered and copyright protected for life with a certificate of intellectual property stamped in Paris, France, and valid in all 176 countries according to the Bern Convention. © Polina Angelova