99 Fears is a catalogue of insecurities created by acclaimed contemporary artist Nedko Solakov. By focusing on personal worries - from war, AIDS and plane crashes to writer's block, infidelity
and the size of one's CV - 99 Fears depicts the general free-floating anxiety of modern life in hilarious detail. In the artist's inimitable voice, handwritten captions bring the drawings to
life with bold strokes of self-deprecating humour. These are the fears of an everyman but also those of an artist who grew up under communism, with all its repressions and privations, only to
find a new set of apprehensions waiting for him under capitalism. Nothing, however, can match his dread of the future, with all its shapeless, unspeakable terrors. By plumbing the depths of his
anxiety, Solakov emerges with his belief in the human spirit intact and his tongue firmly in cheek. If 99 Fears teaches us anything, it is to stop worrying and embrace the only thing we need to
be afraid of: fear itself.
