Top Secret

Description

'Top Secret', created between December 1989 and February 1990, consists of an index box, filled with a series of cards detailing the artist’s youthful collaboration with the Bulgarian state security, which he stopped in 1983. The work caused great controversy when it was first exhibited in the spring of 1990, at the height of the political changes to the long-standing Communist rule. In Bulgaria, the official files still remain closed and for 28 years there were no publicly known documents on the artist’s collaboration. It was not until April 2018 that the state documents relating to the involvement of the artist with the state security of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria were released. The self-disclosing gesture in this artistic project is still unique in the context of post-Communist Europe, and since its appearance 'Top Secret' has become an icon of its time.

The forty-minute long video, which shows the artist rereading the index box’s contents, was shot in his studio in Sofia in 2007. In the video, Solakov mistakenly mentions 1976 as the starting year for the Bulgarian secret service. His service period was from 1978 to 1983.,2019

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