The “Fantastic” Exhibition – Toys, Emotions, Memories – Ivan Dimitrov

From 5 to 8 February 2026, as part of the Art City program during ARTE FIERA 2026, the Studio Santo Stefano gallery in Bologna presents an evocative exhibition by Ivan Dimitrov, set within the special setting of the Palazzo “Casa dei Caprara” on Via Castiglione, a private historic residence exceptionally open to the public for this occasion.

Ivan Dimitrov, an artist best known for his work as a sculptor, appears here in the role of painter, presenting 30 previously unseen paintings depicting toys and visions of fantastical, fairy-tale landscapes that ignite “flashes of memory” within the inner space of our childhood.

Beatrice Buscaroli, curator of the exhibition, writes in her introduction to the catalogue: Dimitrov’s toys thus appear to us as alien and yet terribly familiar; for they are familiar to that consciousness which still retains memories of childhood. They spark flashes of memory from the seasons of our youth, yet these flashes only serve to reaffirm in us as adults the terrible, unbridgeable distance that separates the present time from what once appeared to us, what presented itself as “a pure event”.

“Childhood exists only if one is an adult: childhood is never for the child. The child has the world, the adult has time.”

The exhibition route is accompanied by the display of a collection of early 20th-century antique wooden and tin toys.

The exhibition catalogue, featuring a critical essay by Beatrice Buscaroli, will be available at the show.