Several new awards for contemporary art have been established in Bulgaria in recent years. Telecomunications company MTel has its annual MTel Awards and the Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA) Sofia, together with the Foundation for a Civil Society in the US and the international network Young Visual Artists Awards organises the Baza Award for young artists.

In this field though, the Gaudenz B. Ruf Award takes a special place. Conferred this year for the third time, the Ruf awards has managed to established itself as a major event in contemporary art in Bulgaria.

Asked what contributed to the success of the award, jury members Luchezar Boyadjiev and Vessela Nozharova point to the personality of the former Swiss ambassador to Bulgaria whose name the award bears.

"I would say the number one reason would be the personal dedication of an art patron who has a long-term dedication to the art scene in Bulgaria," Boyadjiev says. "As you know, Ruf was  ambassador of Switzerland in Sofia for several years in the late 1990s.

At that time, he organised one-artist shows at his private residence, as well as offering all kinds of support and encouragement, including contact and recommendations to funding bodies abroad, to the art scene. He was always the person to build bridges of understanding and dialogue, to offer common ground for dialogue and meetings, to moderate where moderation was not always either possible or desirable.

Last but not least, during his time in Sofia, Ruf collected artworks by his favorite Bulgarian artists - I think none of these has won the award so far. So, his commitment was persistent and manifold. The award came as a natural and logical extension of all of that."

Nozharova says: "What is very important is the general principle of the competition. Artists go through two selections. Criteria such as, what are your trying to say, what is valuable, not only in a Bulgarian context, but also in an international context. In this case, the jury members, both Bulgarians and foreign, work with a shared consensus on the criteria by which works should be judged."

"I think the three editions of the award so far show the current state of Bulgarian contemporary art. It has always been a quality of this competition that it does not comply with specific sections within the Bulgarian art world. It does not comply with the interests of different groups and policies. I think that the quality of the competition comes primarily from the ability of Ruf to balance between the warring factions. This, of course, can be seen in the exhibitions.

The first two exhibitions were more eclectic, more colourful in terms of directions. This year’s selection is more homogenous, in terms of means of expression as well as stylistics. I think this is mainly due to the [Bulgarian - RB] artist from abroad," Nozharova says.

"I am aware that there are a lot of sour faces around on the night of the award-giving ceremony, as well as that there are many saying that the jury is incompetent, or who ask ‘who the hell are these people’," Boyadjiev says, "No matter what anybody says or thinks, the procedure that Ruf has established is unique in the country in terms of trying to establish the highest possible level of professionalism, openness and fairness possible."

It is this international jury that Krassimir Terziev, winner of the first Ruf award in 2007 in the category Established Artists, points out as having had an important influence on the Bulgarian contemporary art world.

"This simple move shifts the local family intrigues to a different level, and somehow it has more weight to have been judged by an international team of experts than by an entirely local jury," Terziev says. "Despite all the criticism the award received over the years, I believe it has its value. In a scene with no major institutional support at a national level, this is something that moves the art world away from provincialism, personal likes and dislikes and other tumours of a closed system that Bulgarian art tends to be."

Asked about the impact of receiving the award on his work, Terziev says "I can see people seeing my work differently."