Top Secret, created between December 1989 and February 1990, consists of an index box filled with a series of cards detailing Nedko Solakov’s collaboration with Bulgarian state security in his youth, between 1978 and 1983. The work caused great controversy when it was first exhibited in the spring of 1990, at the height of the monumental political changes to the long-standing Communist rule. In Bulgaria, the official files still remain classified 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 re-reading the index box’s contents, was shot in his studio in Sofia in 2007. In the video, Solakov mistakenly mentions 1976 as the start of the Bulgarian secret service. His service period was from 1978 to 1983.

Works in the exhibition: Top Secret (1989–90/2007), acrylic, drawing ink, oil, photographs, graphite, bronze, aluminium, wood, 179 index cards in original box, 1-channel-video, 40’ 07”. Courtesy of Collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; My Conscience Tormenting Me (1988), oil and graphite on canvas, 72.9 × 92 × 3 cm. Courtesy of Collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Guilt (2023), series of five drawings on paper, watercolour and ink, 28 × 39 cm each. Courtesy of the artist