Toomey Tourell Fine Art: Igor Josifov

Igor Josifov

Photo of Igor Josifov from the Manumission performance.

Igor Josifov is a Macedonian performance artist who attended the School of Applied Arts in Skopje, Macedonia and started his secondary education and career in San Francisco, California. In his performances, the body is a medium that translates his personal and cultural experience into a broader context.

Josifov’s work is based on psychoanalytic perception and the cultural and moral realties of contemporary living. The subject of his work deals with identity, death, loss, and social commentary. He uses concept as the first and most crucial part of the process and then uses the medium and its symbolic function to support the concept as an element. After years of experience with all mediums he decided that the most important and primary medium is his body — it is a common form that communicates his own experience and reflects the viewer’s own ideas of self. The liberation of the body in his work has a metaphoric meaning for the freedom of people in the contemporary world.

Resume

Born in Kavadarci, Macedonia

Lives in San Francisco and New York

Education

2008	Academy of Art University San Francisco, CA
1999	School for Applied Arts “Lazar Licenoski” Skopje, Macedonia

Solo Shows

2008	“Manumission”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Macedonia
	“Face it”, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
	“Art Interrupted”, Space Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2007	Art In Search Of The “I” Translating Space, San Francisco, CA

Group Shows

2008	“Emit” at the Bridge Art Fair, Miami, FL, 12.05-09.
	Performance “Manumission” at the Bridge Art Fair, Berlin, Germany, 10.31-02
	“Ten” 10th anniversary of Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA, 07.01-08.01
	Bridge project, Performance “Purification Process” at the Bridge Art Fair, New York, NY, 03.27-31
	7th Annual Art Auction presented by Visual Aid and Academy of Friends, San Francisco, CA
2007	Big Bang Art show, 79 New Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 01.04 – 02.01
	On the edge of… Sutter Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 03.02
	Paint Soup, San Francisco, CA, 04.04 -05.01
	Academy of Art University, 2007 Annual Spring Show, San Francisco, CA, 05.24
2004	Museum of Skopje, Skopje, Macedonia
2000	The International Museum of Art, Oslo, Norway

Scholarships And Awards

2005	100% tuition grant, Academy of Art University Portfolio Grant Program, San Francisco, CA
1999-2003	Stipend from the Macedonian Ministry of Culture for the School for Applied Arts “Lazar Licenoski” Skopje, Macedonia.
2003	1st place, International Art Exhibition :13 Noemvri” City of Skopje.
2000	Award for single creation “Vision of the future” at the 14th International exhibition The Small monmartre of Bitola, Macedonia
	First Prize for successful creation at the State Art Exhibition, Cultural Center ”Ilindenski Denovi” Bitola, Macedonia
1998	Special diploma for “Society seen through the eyes of children“ The international Museum of Art, Oslo, Norway. In cooperation with the Norwegian Ministry of Education, Norwegian council for cultural affairs
1995	City of Skopje, exhibition award “13 Noemvri:” Art Center, Skopje, Macedonia