Aki Kiefer, Barbara Karrer, Denitsa Milusheva, Diana Galli, Dimitar Solakov, Radostin Sedevchev, and Marlene Franz Bautz
RECIPE

The exhibition RECIPE explores the interpretation, transmission, and expansion of a written recipe, merging the disciplines of cooking and art. The concept is built on an artistic and intercultural exchange between artists from Bulgaria and Germany. As part of the preparations, the Bulgarian chef Alexander Gocev was invited to create a recipe, which is individually interpreted by all participating artists, fostering the development of diverse artistic perspectives. The recipe is based on a typical Bulgarian breakfast and transformed into a personal culinary story by the chef Alexander Gocev. Visitors can immerse themselves in the artistic interpretation of this in the RECIPE exhibition at Gallery Rafael Mihailov in Veliko Turnovo. The German artists Aki Kiefer, Barbara Karrer, Diana Galli, and Marlene Franz Bautz developed and produced their works during a residency at ARV.I in Vishovgrad, from April 13 on. These works are exhibited together with the works of the Bulgarian artists Denica Milusheva, Dimitar Solakov, and Radostin Vasilev Sedevchev.

Aki Kiefer (b. 1986, Munich) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts München in the class of Pamela Rosenkranz in 2021 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB). She has a Master of Arts in Art Education and a degree in Design where she studied at the University of Bolzano, Italy. Often her work focuses on the perception and experience of spaces: specific, public, private, or intimate. She transcends genres by creating conceptions and realizations of cultural places of encounters in the urban environment, photography, mixed-media-installations, sound-montage, and paintings. Many of her works emerge out of involvement in various collectives and collaborations with other artists. She likes to explore new forms of togetherness and connecting in terms of aesthetics as well as content. Her most recent exhibitions and projects include the Recipe exhibition at Art Quarter Budapest (2025), group projects such as Super Echo, Ombra, the sky is the limit and Ma`Flora Superstite at Zirka Space Munich (2024/25), exhibition and exchange RECIPE at Lothringer Halle 13, München (2024), NETZE at Kunstarkaden (2023), Jahresgaben at Kunstverein München (2022), various exhibitions as part of the Studio Scholarship by Julie Schemann, Maurin Dietrich and Andrea Lissoni, Munich (2022-2023), curation and development of the art and cultural venue LOCUS in Munich (2021-2022).

Denitsa Milusheva (b. 1992, Sofia, BG) is a visual artist and researcher, working in performance, sculpture, and installation. Milusheva holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. Cyril and Methodius”. Her dissertation examines the development of performance art in Bulgaria. She holds a Masters degree in “Sculpture” from Veliko Turnovo University. Graduated from the Educational Course for Young Artists "Close Encounters – Visual Dialogues", Institute for Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2015, she participated in the Curatorial Course organized by the Academy of Fine Arts "Władysław Strzemiński" and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Łódź, Poland. She has exhibited in Bulgaria and abroad, including at the Heerz Tooya Gallery, DOZA Gallery, Institute for Contemporary Art - Sofia, as well as at the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale (South Korea) and the Biennale of Humor and Satire in Gabrovo. In addition to being an artist, Milusheva is a curator and cultural manager, co-founder of the Heerz Tooya Gallery, and an art manager of TаM - Veliko Tarnovo. She is an assistant lecturer at the University of Veliko Tarnovo, where she teaches and develops her academic work in visual studies.

Barbara Karrer (b. 1988) lives and works in Munich. She works project-based and incorporates an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophical, scientific, and societal questions. From 2020 to 2022, she was a co-founder and part of the artistic management team of the art and cultural space "Locus" in Munich. Since then, she has been developing platforms for creative and social interactions, often collaborating with other artists. Since 2020, Barbara Karrer has been studying Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Initially, she studied under Katharina Gaenssler and Johanna Reich before joining the Performance Class led by Professor Alexandra Pirici in 2023. Starting in 2024, she is also part of the "Sound and Experiment" project class under Florian Hecker. In her artistic practice, she combines visual arts, sound, and performance into time-based formats and large-scale installations. Her works are dynamic and evolve over time, creating process-oriented and transformative experiences. Her recent exhibitions and projects include: Recipe – Budapest, Art Quarter Budapest, Hungary (2025); We have everything, we lack the rest!, Farm Cultural Park, Favara, Sicily (2024–2025); Recipe – Munich, Lothringer 13, Munich (2024); Energy Workation Artists Residency & Exhibition, Umspannwerk, Wasserburg am Inn (2023); Solidary / Solitary, Ganserhaus, Wasserburg am Inn (2023); curation and establishment of the cultural space LOCUS in Munich's urban area (2021–2022); Next! Festival der jungen Photoszene, Cologne (2021); Restoration, Detroit (2021).

Marlene Franz Bautz (born 1988 in Penzberg) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich under Albert Hien and completed her state examination there in 2016. She participated in project classes by Mariechen Danz, Melanie Bonajo, and Nairy Baghramian. Afterward, she attended courses in media art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and was a student of Prof. Dr. Andrea Büttner at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Her works have been exhibited at ASFA Athens, Hall 14 of the Leipzig Cotton Mill, circuits and current project space Athens, Kunstpavillon Munich, and Lothringer 13, among others. She lives and works in Munich. Re-formed and recontextualised, her materials retain their character, prompting new perceptions, associations and interpretations by playing on the observer’s – and our collective – memory. Exploring their potential, she opens up a new, liminal space in the observer’s mind, where the familiar takes on new meaning. M. Franz Bautz is a visual artist focusing on sculpture, installations and collaborative works. In her artistic practice, Franz Bautz explores humble, everyday human-made materials and objects in a detailed and deliberate process of feminist new materialism, to which dynamism and flux are central. She begins by noticing the most mundane of materials, often those found in urban environments. She then goes on to re:search, re:visit, re:view and re:place her material, exploring how it intersects with memory and the everyday, and embarking on a process of transformation.

Diana Galli (b. 1989) lives and works in Munich. She is a trained stage painter and sculptor and worked at the Nuremberg State Theatre until 2016. In 2018, she began her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and studied under professors Pia Fries, Cordula Ditz, Toulu Hassani, and Andreas Breunig. In 2025, she graduated in fine arts with a specialization in painting. Since 2017, she has been the director and curator of the offspace gallery Galaxieoffgalerie with exhibitions in Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and Nuremberg. Her art has been shown in institutions such as Kunstpalais Erlangen 2025, Kunstverein Ellwangen 2024, Galerie der Künstler*Innen 2024, and Kunstverein München 2023.

Dimitar Solakov (b. 1987) graduated from the Department of Photography at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. The artist uses a wide range of media, including photography, video, drawings, paintings, 3d printed objects, and AR. In his work, he investigates various types of connections – between nature, urbanisation and the human placed in the middle; between the past and its interpretations in the present. Another is the natural world and our place/role in it. He’s interested in our self-proclaimed role as custodians of this planet and what a bad job we do at that. Many projects are dealing with the future of mankind observed through the prism of the present. The works could be either very personal or completely detached from the position of the distanced observer. His works have been shown in numerous international shows, some of which are: “SUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement”, 21st Biennale of Sydney (Sydney, Australia), “Cosmopolis #2”, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), “Contact”, Radiator gallery (New York, USA), “Chronicles of the Future Superheroes”, Kunsthalle Bega (Timișoara, Romania), ”The Artist-Collector's Dream (a nice thing)" Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Italy), “What is Left”, (Vienna, Austria), “The Pleasures of Love” (Belgrade, Serbia), “The Power of Doubt” Times Museum (Guangzhou, China), Bienal de Cuenca XI (Cuenca, Ecuador), PHotoEspaña (Madrid, Spain), GRID Photographie Biennal (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), “25th Gabrovo Biennial of Humor and Satire - Economies of Means” (Gabrovo, Bulgaria), “Ritual Of The Habitual” (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), Sofia Contemporary (Sofia, Bulgaria), “All I Can Do Is Art” (Prague, Czech Republic). He has had one-person shows in Structura Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria), Vivacom ArtHall (Sofia, Bulgaria), Incubate (Tilburg, The Netherlands), Heerz Tooya gallery (Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria), Credo Bonum Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria), Sariev Contemporary (Plovdiv, Bulgaria), 0gms (Sofia, Bulgaria), Vaska Emanuilova Gallery (Sofia, Bulgaria).

Radostin Sedevchev (b. 1988 in Pernik, Bulgaria) graduated from the National Art Academy in Mural Painting. He took his PhD in 2018 from the same school where he is now a Senior Assistant Professor in Mural Painting. He graduated “Close Encounters — Visual dialogues/ School4artists", the educational program for young artists of the ICA-Sofia (2017) and specialized with the University for Fine Arts (HfBK) in Dresden, Germany (2017), as well as with the Glyndwr University in Wrexham, Wales, UK (2011) Member of the institute for contemporary art. His most recent solo shows were at +359 Gallery in 2022, The National Gallery, Sofia in 2021, Heerz Tooya Gallery, Veliko Tarnovo in 2019, at the ICA—Sofia Gallery in 2018, and at Vaska Emanuilova Gallery, Sofia in 2017.

The exhibition is supported by the Municipality of Veliko Turnovo and Funded by the European Union and the Goethe-Institut, and City of Munich Department of Arts and Culture.