Gallery Gallery
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/2d701f13f4-1718385019/01.elena-kaludova.jpg)
Elena Kaludova
I love You Very Much, 2024
Installation view from Ploshtadka, Sofia
Image courtesy of Gallery Gallery
Before starting Gallery Gallery in late 2019, Albena Baeva and Rene Beekman spent more than a decade initiating, organising and curating digital art events and exhibitions across Bulgaria and abroad. Frustrated with the lack of structural support in existing local galleries and institutions in terms of facilities as well as a lack of acceptance of new art forms, the question became, "Can we run our own gallery?" Around that time, the Wrong Biennial sent out its call for router-based pavilions for its three-month worldwide festival. We realised we could extend The Wrong's pavilion concept to a gallery by making the router available permanently and changing exhibitions every few months. There was no need to rent a space or deal with funding, staffing, opening hours, and the rest of the daily grind that slows down physical galleries. And so, in November 2019, Gallery Gallery opened its doors (well, the router's Wi-Fi network, anyway) with our first exhibition, "Dangerous Creatures Living in the Deep''. The gallery has been open 24/7 since to anyone who was able to connect to its Wi-Fi network.
In March 2020, on the day that our third exhibition was scheduled to open, the first COVID lockdown was announced. We postponed the opening to rethink our strategy but soon agreed that since our Wi-Fi network was accessible from the street, we could safely continue to run our gallery. While other galleries would be closed for most of that year, we re-opened two months later with a parallel program of shows on our router and online, doubling the number of artists and works we showed during the pandemic.
While experimenting with Augmented Reality applications, we realised this technology offered fantastic potential for sculptural exhibitions in public space. In July 2021, we opened our first sculpture park, Ploshtadka. The name of the park is Bulgarian for playground, a landing site or a construction site. In our case, the sculpture park is a QR code that is painted on the ground in a children's playground. By scanning the QR code, visitors can open a 3D object in either Mixed Reality or Augmented Reality and place the object in the surrounding playground area. Exhibitions are changed on a regular basis.
In 2024, we are planning to open similar public space sculpture parks in Varna, Bulgaria, in collaboration with Buna Festival, and in Berlin, Germany, in collaboration with Projektraum Galerie M.
Gallery Gallery has shown a large selection of local and foreign artists, including Julianne Aguilar, Zara Alexandrova, Albena Baeva, Andrei Barbu, Petya Boyukova, Kalina Dimitrova, Stefan Donchev, Zoran Georgiev, Diana Ivanova, Elena Kaludova, Antoniya Koleva - Nitra, Lucas LaRochelle, Dirk Paesmans, Sakrowski, Dagmar Schürrer, Boris Shershenkov, Igor Štromajer, Daniel Szalai, and Krassimir Terziev.
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/56a3c95ecb-1718385020/02.igor_stromajer.jpg)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/8cfcab2ff2-1718385021/03.krassimir_terziev.png)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/b128557ddc-1718385020/04.boris_shershenkov.png)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/d14c3cc7af-1718385026/05.marina_genova.png)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/1b7b644b39-1718385024/06.lucas_larochelle.jpg)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/6d9b551cfc-1718385025/07.dirk_paesmans.jpg)
![](https://artist-run.eu/media/pages/index/gallery-gallery/f9eccb3b10-1718385026/08.petya_boyukova.jpg)
Mission:
Gallery Gallery is a project by artists and curators Rene Beekman and Albena Baeva. It is the only gallery in Bulgaria entirely focused on digital art. All exhibitions at the gallery are shown in a virtual exhibition space that is accessible non-stop, but only if you are close enough to the physical location of the gallery. Gallery Gallery operates two spaces in Sofia, Bulgaria, with annexes in Varna, Bulgaria, and Berlin, Germany, opening in 2024.Location:
Sofia, BulgariaFounded:
2019Premises:
One router-based space, one public playground, with additional public spaces planned for Varna and Berlin for 2024Funding:
Self-fundedOther Funding:
NoneLegal Status:
NoneTeam:
2 co-founders and co-directorsSelected Projects:
Dangerous Creatures Living in the Deep (2019)
Recent Myths with Traditional Patterns (2020)
Top 84 Ways of Going Greener at Home (2020)
Life After: The Garden of Artificial Delights (2020)
return void; (2020)
Here The Food Never Spoils (2020)
Etheroforming Observatory: Program One (2021)
BGx.BG медийна храна (2021)
Function Hope (2021)
Flying Rat (2021)
Fragments of Consciousness (2021)
Cosmophonatic (2022)
Tuesday (2022)
Sitting here with you in the future (2022)
⊡.gif (2022)
Influence (2022)
The Crying Beam (2023)
I Love You Very Much (2024)
Type:
- Artist-Run
- Artist-Initiated
Status:
-
+ Active § Added since 2016