Visit to exhibition by contemporary artist Lyuben Petrov, LIFE TO COME

On Monday, 5 February 2024, students of the Master’s program in International Relations and Diplomacy visited contemporary artist Lyuben Petrov’s LIFE TO COME exhibition presented by the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Paris. Dr Myriam Benraad, Global Academic Chair for International Relations and Diplomacy at Schiller International University, organized this outdoor immersive activity.

Lyuben Petrov works in the field of figurative painting. He was born in 1984 in Bourgas, Bulgaria. He began training at the Sofia Academy of Fine Arts, specializing in Fresco, before moving to Brno, Czech Republic, where he now lives and works.

Petrov defines his style as “expressive realism”, and Schiller students could explore some of his works marked by strong imagery and vigorous coloring, shaping a unique educational experience. He draws inspiration from mythology, pop culture and contemporary social satire.

LIFE TO COME is Petrov’s first solo exhibition in Paris. It is a story set outside time, between the past and the future. The artist explores the invisible links between the present day, its themes and symbols, and the future we are creating here and now.

Ecology, equality, the traumas of isolation and human relationships are among his favorite subjects. Petrov is also interested in the opposition between ugly and beautiful as philosophical categories.

The exhibition includes 20 works, creating a space filled with robust, omnipresent yet fragile, sensitive, unlikely characters, unique in their impulse to survive. Each faces their apocalypse as superheroes of a life to come.