With our work we want to demonstrate both to the nations that have unwillingly sheltered them and to those the kloshars have decided to leave, the manifoldness of their culture, enforced and cultivated by the harsh ambient of the Eastern European street but also impregnated with the idiosyncrasy of the Slavic and gypsy spirit.
The Manifesto
If we can't beat consumerism, let's at least put it to good use
1. Klosharism is not a vagary of fashion, but it's not a social ailment either. It's a movement against the prejudices of society due to which homeless people all over the world are being viewed as secondhand people, parasitically living off the labor of others.
2. Klosharism is a state of the mind and the soul and it can arise as initial anxiety for the material aspects of the future when one is between jobs, facing a lay-off, or disappointed by a current job. The task of Klosharism is however, to prevent this anxiety from over-occupying one's life and a true Klosharist will value the spiritual higher than the material. As an answer to consumerism and the tendency of diminishing access to art that Modernism tried to break over a century ago but that has nonetheless revived during the economic struggle of today, Klosharists pledge that their only gallery, tribune and scene will be the street where they draw their inspirations from and where it will be accessible to everyone.
3. A Klosharist can be any artist, writer, photographer, performer or any other person who believes that art is about simplicity and genuineness and who knows to treasure people not for what they work but for who they are.
4. What most refer to as "kitsch" in the outcasts' surroundings and especially in gypsy camps, we call "necessity", for whereas most middle class families can afford to furnish their homes with a homogeneous set of furniture and to paint their walls to match its color, kloshars don't have any other choice but to make do with what they find on the street.
5. But why don't they just look for a job and stop complaining, one may ask, and yet before we judge the homeless and the unemployed, we should realize that there are many other factors that must be taken into consideration. In fact, some of the most common reasons for the existence of kloshars are: depression caused by a severe emotional trauma, a serious illness or disability, drug or alcohol addiction or inadaptability upon release from prison. Thus, instead of criticizing, one should first try to understand the causes that have led to this state of living. Most importantly, however, whatever the reasons, one must not forget that the person living on the street is a human being with the same dignity and rights like all of us.
6. Klosharism, as inspired by the culture of the underprivileged Roma individuals and the kloshars as a whole, is notable for the austerity of style (just like kloshars don't revel in vain and needless luxury, and keep body and soul together by using just what they need to survive and nothing above the line of existence, Klosharist art and literature denounce any unnecessary adornments of the canvas or text, that, in their view, only serve to blur meaning rather than to clarify it).
7. What distinguishes Klosharism from other minimalist styles or cut-up techniques however, is the presence of unusual objects in the text or painting or more specifically, the combination of completely heterogeneous objects in the same mode of communication. That too is derived from the kloshar culture where, as stated in point 3, we can hardly ever see, for instance, two identical chairs around a table, or two identical plates on it. Everything is unique and single, as it has been found on the street.
8. Moreover, what Klosharists value above all in the hobo culture, especially in the one of the Balkan countries, is the remarkable skill of kloshars to invent new functions of seemingly needless, broken, outdated or otherwise impaired objects. Thus, what most people collect in their homes for the sole purpose or recycling, like plastic bottles, kloshars use the way they are or with slight modifications but they generally retain their initial appearance. Thus, a Klosharist painting will often emphasize the unexpected applications of mundane objects, for instance: In the work of a Klosharist it won't be uncommon to see a person lying on a table instead of a bed, or sitting on a bucket instead of a chair. Old battered cars can be homes and apartments can be stables and cattle-pens, as is often the case in Bulgarian gypsy camps.
9. Finally, you will be able to recognize a Klosharist work among many others by the clear signs of poverty and promiscuity of the depicted objects, and yet they won't be randomly present on the canvas or in the text - they must always carry a specific meaning and denote an original, unsuspected function. Moreover, the works of Klosharists should convey the true nature of Balkan kloshars - their gaiety, hopefulness, freedom and spirituality, influenced by the mythology of the Slavs, the traditions of the Balkan peoples, and the ideas of the reggae generation and the beatniks.
The main intention of the Klosharist movement is to try and overpower the negative connotation the words "kloshar" and "gypsy" have assumed in Bulgaria and the rest of Europe lately and invest a new meaning in them by demonstrating the artistic side of these social groups. As for the rest of the world, where those concepts are fairly unknown or wrapped in mystery, we seek to present them to it with all their vitality and genuine beauty.
If you consider yourself a Klosharist, contact us:
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