Daniel Bozhkov will discuss the many different worlds that he has inhabited to develop his art – from the world of genetic science to department mega-stores – as part of the Hartford Art School's Auerbach Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Bozhkov's talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Thursday, Nov. 5, from 5 to 7 p.m., in Mali 2 Auditorium (Dana Hall). The event is presented by the Sculpture Department of the Hartford Art School, and made possible by the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund.

Bozhkov is a Bulgarian-born artist based in New York City. He employs a variety of media, from fresco to performance and video, and works with professionals from different fields, using different strategies to activate the public space. Bozhkov enters the worlds of genetic science, department mega-stores, and world-famous tourist-sites as an amateur intruder/visitor who also functions as a producer of new strains of meaning into seemingly closed systems.

For his work, Bozhkov has learned to pilot an aircraft, greet customers at a Wal-Mart, and bake simit bread, among other things. "I like very much to be an apprentice," he told The Highlights website. "This process of learning, which reminds me of the very traditional course of learning I went through as an artist, always expands the possibility of what the work could be. By learning how to make simits, you meet a baker who will tell a story about something you've never heard before. Then you learn what movement of kneading the dough makes simits faster, and what makes simits sell better on the streets. It's that kind of line of participation, but also an inquiry into the real, which is very important for me."

Bozhkov is a recipient of a 2007 Chuck Close Rome Prize of the American Academy in Rome, and of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation, Art Matters, and Artslink. He has shown at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York City; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, Ohio; Arthouse at Hones Center in Austin, Texas; Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, Georgia; Skulpturenpark Berlin Zentrum, Berlin, Germany; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; OK Centrum fur Gegenwart Kunst, Linz, Austria; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey. His work also has been shown in international exhibitions in Brazil, Turkey, Russia, and Lithuania.

Bozhkov is currently an artist-in-residence at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, and teaches as a lecturer at Columbia and Yale universities. He is represented by Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York City.