Adrian GHENIE (born in 1977)
2008 Nickelodeon
2016 SOLD for £ 7.1M by Christie's
Born in Romania, Adrian Ghenie was 12 at the fall of Ceausescu. Having become an artist he compares the new sanitized and shiny lifestyle with the dark and tragic dictatorship that he has known and of which we must not forget the inhumanity. He understands and expresses the fragility of modern life where political horror remains possible.
On October 6, 2016, Christie's for £ 7.1M from a lower estimate of £ 1M Nickelodeon, oil and acrylic on canvas painted in 2008, lot 5. This very large diptych 238 x 414 cm overall was the centerpiece of a 2009 exhibition significantly entitled Darkness for an hour.
A group of men are standing. Most of them look towards a screen. In a banal room, they watch a movie of the old days. We guess their intentions and commitments. With their old-fashioned hats and long coats, they personify the dark hours of the nomenklatura. They indeed destroyed their own lives by destroying the others.
These chilling stiff characters have no identity. The swollen faces are blurred as in these photos where the Stalinist bureaucrats altered the past by erasing the traitors to their cause. One of these men has a more precise gesture as if he lacerated his own face with his hands.
On October 6, 2016, Christie's for £ 7.1M from a lower estimate of £ 1M Nickelodeon, oil and acrylic on canvas painted in 2008, lot 5. This very large diptych 238 x 414 cm overall was the centerpiece of a 2009 exhibition significantly entitled Darkness for an hour.
A group of men are standing. Most of them look towards a screen. In a banal room, they watch a movie of the old days. We guess their intentions and commitments. With their old-fashioned hats and long coats, they personify the dark hours of the nomenklatura. They indeed destroyed their own lives by destroying the others.
These chilling stiff characters have no identity. The swollen faces are blurred as in these photos where the Stalinist bureaucrats altered the past by erasing the traitors to their cause. One of these men has a more precise gesture as if he lacerated his own face with his hands.
2008 The Collector
2021 SOLD for HK$ 66M by Christie's
A foe of the absolutisms of the 20th century, Adrian Ghenie observes the relation between political madness and love of art.
In 2008-2009, he executes a series of four paintings titled The Collector, based on the bulimia for art of Hermann Göring, and questioning the meaning of art. The first opus recuperates a black and white photo used in 1946 during the Nuremberg trials.
In a closed room, a man with a mad gaze is crouching alone on the edge of a sofa. He is obsessed by his stifling mess of empty frames that invades all the available walls and floor around him. His beloved accumulated art is absent. Nobody can help him. Any trace of human feelings were canceled by his terrible obsession.
This life size oil on canvas 200 x 290 cm painted in 2008 was sold for HK $ 66M from a lower estimate of HK $ 45M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 48.
In the second opus, Göring eagerly grasps an artwork in both hands. The opus 3 features the collector closely inspecting a painting on the wall.
In the fourth and last opus, the man is lying dead on his coffin, surrounded by his spectral art. His pose is based on a photograph taken shortly after Göring's suicide during the Nuremberg trials. Above him is hanging the image of the Prussian Archangel, a 1920 Dada assemblage depicting a German soldier with a pig’s head. This oil on canvas 200 x 240 cm painted in 2009 was sold for £ 2.65M by Christie's on March 6, 2019, lot 5.
Commenting his own art, Ghenie observed that Göring's sunken cheeks, turned purple after the extensive use of morphine and alcohol, do not show in photos.
In 2008-2009, he executes a series of four paintings titled The Collector, based on the bulimia for art of Hermann Göring, and questioning the meaning of art. The first opus recuperates a black and white photo used in 1946 during the Nuremberg trials.
In a closed room, a man with a mad gaze is crouching alone on the edge of a sofa. He is obsessed by his stifling mess of empty frames that invades all the available walls and floor around him. His beloved accumulated art is absent. Nobody can help him. Any trace of human feelings were canceled by his terrible obsession.
This life size oil on canvas 200 x 290 cm painted in 2008 was sold for HK $ 66M from a lower estimate of HK $ 45M by Christie's on May 24, 2021, lot 48.
In the second opus, Göring eagerly grasps an artwork in both hands. The opus 3 features the collector closely inspecting a painting on the wall.
In the fourth and last opus, the man is lying dead on his coffin, surrounded by his spectral art. His pose is based on a photograph taken shortly after Göring's suicide during the Nuremberg trials. Above him is hanging the image of the Prussian Archangel, a 1920 Dada assemblage depicting a German soldier with a pig’s head. This oil on canvas 200 x 240 cm painted in 2009 was sold for £ 2.65M by Christie's on March 6, 2019, lot 5.
Commenting his own art, Ghenie observed that Göring's sunken cheeks, turned purple after the extensive use of morphine and alcohol, do not show in photos.
2010 The Visitation
2018 SOLD for £ 4.9M by Sotheby's
Adrian Ghenie is disturbed by the Dadaist statement by Marcel Duchamp that painting is dead, supported by the latter's invention of the anti-art ready-made.
In a revenge, a 2009 painting titled Dada is Dead features a wolf standing on its four legs in the corner of a dark chamber decorated with paintings on the wall. In the same year he conceives a portrait of Duchamp incongruously seated in a kitchen.
Also in 2009, another amalgamation features Duchamp's Funeral through a series of two similar paintings 200 x 300 cm each, assessing that painting survived Dada.
In an apartment furnished with Ghenie's studio chair, a man with the sharp face lines of Duchamp is lying in state on a coffin covered with Ghenie's Turkish rug coming from his grandmother.
Duchamp's Funeral I was sold for £ 4.3M from a lower estimate of £ 2.5M by Sotheby's on March 5, 2019, lot 25.
In 2010 Ghenie creates an installation titled the Dada room, inspired from the 1920 Dada Fair in Berlin.
In a revenge, a 2009 painting titled Dada is Dead features a wolf standing on its four legs in the corner of a dark chamber decorated with paintings on the wall. In the same year he conceives a portrait of Duchamp incongruously seated in a kitchen.
Also in 2009, another amalgamation features Duchamp's Funeral through a series of two similar paintings 200 x 300 cm each, assessing that painting survived Dada.
In an apartment furnished with Ghenie's studio chair, a man with the sharp face lines of Duchamp is lying in state on a coffin covered with Ghenie's Turkish rug coming from his grandmother.
Duchamp's Funeral I was sold for £ 4.3M from a lower estimate of £ 2.5M by Sotheby's on March 5, 2019, lot 25.
In 2010 Ghenie creates an installation titled the Dada room, inspired from the 1920 Dada Fair in Berlin.
In 2010 after the funerals of Dada and Duchamp, the next series by Ghenie is The Visitation, staging himself in the desire of being tempted by the Devil after St. Anthony and Dr Faust.
The largest opus of the series of ten is titled Boogeyman, the evil spirit entrusted by parents to frighten children for getting a good behavior. The artist is viewed from back in his studio, half hidden in an armchair while a man is standing, possibly the evil faun Pan in a modern dark attire.
This oil on canvas 200 x 335 cm was sold for £ 4.9M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2018, lot 49.
Another example of The Visitation is The Fake Rothko appropriating an abstraction by the abstract artist. This oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm was sold for £ 1.43M by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014, lot 35.
The largest opus of the series of ten is titled Boogeyman, the evil spirit entrusted by parents to frighten children for getting a good behavior. The artist is viewed from back in his studio, half hidden in an armchair while a man is standing, possibly the evil faun Pan in a modern dark attire.
This oil on canvas 200 x 335 cm was sold for £ 4.9M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2018, lot 49.
Another example of The Visitation is The Fake Rothko appropriating an abstraction by the abstract artist. This oil on canvas 200 x 200 cm was sold for £ 1.43M by Sotheby's on June 30, 2014, lot 35.
Darwin
Intro
It may happen that Ghenie has a special opinion about a famous person whom he then embeds as a self portrait, supported by Francis Bacon's signature technique of blurring the dual face in a heavy impasto.
Self portrait as Vincent van Gogh, oil on canvas 48 x 30.5 cm painted in 2012, was sold for $ 2.6M by Sotheby's on May 11, 2016, lot 1.
Self portrait as Charles Darwin, oil on canvas 203 x 228 cm painted in 2011, was sold for £ 3.25M by Sotheby's on March 8, 2017, lot 7. Ghenie's haircut is emerging over a mask of Darwin's face held by a yellow elastic. This ambiguous work is the very first appearance of Darwin in Ghenie's work. Many dual face portraits will follow.
Ghenie observes that Darwin's discovery of the natural selection encouraged the development of eugenics by the genocidal despots of the 20th century, from Hitler supported by Dr Mengele to Stalin and Ceausescu, and the Nazi purging of degenerate art and culture beside the project of creating a master race.
Ghenie also recognized that the groundbreaking biologist was severely debilitated throughout his life by a wide range of illness including severe eczema whose cause was not diagnosed plus a genetic vomiting syndrome.
Self portrait as Vincent van Gogh, oil on canvas 48 x 30.5 cm painted in 2012, was sold for $ 2.6M by Sotheby's on May 11, 2016, lot 1.
Self portrait as Charles Darwin, oil on canvas 203 x 228 cm painted in 2011, was sold for £ 3.25M by Sotheby's on March 8, 2017, lot 7. Ghenie's haircut is emerging over a mask of Darwin's face held by a yellow elastic. This ambiguous work is the very first appearance of Darwin in Ghenie's work. Many dual face portraits will follow.
Ghenie observes that Darwin's discovery of the natural selection encouraged the development of eugenics by the genocidal despots of the 20th century, from Hitler supported by Dr Mengele to Stalin and Ceausescu, and the Nazi purging of degenerate art and culture beside the project of creating a master race.
Ghenie also recognized that the groundbreaking biologist was severely debilitated throughout his life by a wide range of illness including severe eczema whose cause was not diagnosed plus a genetic vomiting syndrome.
1
2013 The Death of Charles Darwin
2021 SOLD for HK$ 55M by Sotheby's
The Death of Charles Darwin features the long bearded elderly scientist standing beside a river with a bridge in the background. Confronted with the title, the stillness of the character evokes an anxious immortality.
This oil on canvas 280 x 260 cm painted by Ghenie in 2013 was sold for HK $ 55M by Sotheby's on October 9, 2021, lot 1110.
This oil on canvas 280 x 260 cm painted by Ghenie in 2013 was sold for HK $ 55M by Sotheby's on October 9, 2021, lot 1110.
2
2014 Charles Darwin at the age of 75
2021 SOLD for HK$ 58M by Christie's
Painted by Ghenie in 2014, Charles Darwin at the age of 75 is another bold step as the scientist had in fact died at 73. The posthumous man is seated in a chair in an autumnal landscape and looks at the viewer. His face is partly masked by a violet blur.
This oil on canvas 200 x 270 cm was exhibited in 2014 at the Pace gallery, in the building where Darwin and Wallace had revealed their work on the origin of species at the Linnean society in 1858.
It was sold for HK $ 58M from a lower estimate of HK $ 32M by Christie's on December 1, 2021, lot 9.
The other works of that pseudo-biographical series are Charles Darwin as a young man, made in 2013, and at the age of 40, made in 2014.
Time flows, ineluctably. As acknowledged by the artist, his vision of life dates from before the internet.
This oil on canvas 200 x 270 cm was exhibited in 2014 at the Pace gallery, in the building where Darwin and Wallace had revealed their work on the origin of species at the Linnean society in 1858.
It was sold for HK $ 58M from a lower estimate of HK $ 32M by Christie's on December 1, 2021, lot 9.
The other works of that pseudo-biographical series are Charles Darwin as a young man, made in 2013, and at the age of 40, made in 2014.
Time flows, ineluctably. As acknowledged by the artist, his vision of life dates from before the internet.
2014 Pie Fight Interior
2022 SOLD for HK$ 81M by Christie's
While the world was trending to the financial crisis and the rise of Fascism and Nazism, US movie-goers enjoyed pie fights. The most spectacular was staged outdoors in 1927 by Hal Roach as a short movie titled The Battle of the Century Pie Fight starring Laurel and Hardy.
This contrast between laugh riot and the social disasters of the time appealed Ghenie, who preferred referring to a 1941 film titled In the Sweet Pie and Pie starring the Three Stooges. Ghenie is a lifelong fan of the great disturbers such as Hitchcock and Lynch. It is no doubt that the soiled faces perfectly match Ghenie's style inspired from Bacon of blurring the faces, in a fancy that missed to Bacon.
After a first series in 2008-2009, the Pie Fight Interior set was executed by Ghenie between 2012 and 2014. The monumental opus 12, painted in 2014, features an actress in a bright yellow dress, alone on stage in front of an apocalyptic landscape, wiping her face with her hands after receiving a cream pie.
This oil on canvas 284 x 350 cm was sold for HK $ 81M from a lower estimate of HK $ 68M by Christie's on May 26, 2022, lot 8A.
The opus 11 is kept at the Centre Georges Ponpidou.
The series is certainly a pun from the official German name of the 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst in German with entartete meaning obsolete, while the French name for the pie fight is tarte à la crème.
This contrast between laugh riot and the social disasters of the time appealed Ghenie, who preferred referring to a 1941 film titled In the Sweet Pie and Pie starring the Three Stooges. Ghenie is a lifelong fan of the great disturbers such as Hitchcock and Lynch. It is no doubt that the soiled faces perfectly match Ghenie's style inspired from Bacon of blurring the faces, in a fancy that missed to Bacon.
After a first series in 2008-2009, the Pie Fight Interior set was executed by Ghenie between 2012 and 2014. The monumental opus 12, painted in 2014, features an actress in a bright yellow dress, alone on stage in front of an apocalyptic landscape, wiping her face with her hands after receiving a cream pie.
This oil on canvas 284 x 350 cm was sold for HK $ 81M from a lower estimate of HK $ 68M by Christie's on May 26, 2022, lot 8A.
The opus 11 is kept at the Centre Georges Ponpidou.
The series is certainly a pun from the official German name of the 1937 exhibition of degenerate art, Entartete Kunst in German with entartete meaning obsolete, while the French name for the pie fight is tarte à la crème.
2016 The Trip
2021 SOLD for HK$ 48M by Sotheby's
In May 1937 Picasso executed a large mural commissioned by the Spanish Republican government for the pavilion of the Universal Exhibition of Paris. He chose the unsustainable horror of the bombing of Guernica that had happened on April 26, 1937. A few weeks later he was declared a degenerate artist by the Nazis.
In the opinion of the public, Guernica had made Picasso a leading anti-war personality. The artist was undoubtedly disturbed by such a reputation. In 1944 he decided to follow and joined the Parti Communiste Français.
Much later in Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, whose repressive regime are forever for Adrian Ghenie the arch-symbol of the political horrors of the 20th century, was also a communist.
In 2016 Ghenie imagines a trip that had never happened of Picasso on the ruins of the village of Guernica, obliged to at last confront the full impact of the atrocity he depicted in period. The artist copies here a photo of Picasso shot in 1944 at the age of 63 in a much disillusioned attitude in his workshop of the rue des Grands Augustins. This document reminds his questionable decision to remain in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
Ghenie made Picasso an elderly man in dull red coat contrasting the bright colors in energetic strokes of his surrounding. Titled The Trip, this oil on canvas 240 x 200 cm was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 48M on April 19, 2021, lot 1121 and for $ 4.5M on May 20, 2022, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In the opinion of the public, Guernica had made Picasso a leading anti-war personality. The artist was undoubtedly disturbed by such a reputation. In 1944 he decided to follow and joined the Parti Communiste Français.
Much later in Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, whose repressive regime are forever for Adrian Ghenie the arch-symbol of the political horrors of the 20th century, was also a communist.
In 2016 Ghenie imagines a trip that had never happened of Picasso on the ruins of the village of Guernica, obliged to at last confront the full impact of the atrocity he depicted in period. The artist copies here a photo of Picasso shot in 1944 at the age of 63 in a much disillusioned attitude in his workshop of the rue des Grands Augustins. This document reminds his questionable decision to remain in Paris during the Nazi occupation.
Ghenie made Picasso an elderly man in dull red coat contrasting the bright colors in energetic strokes of his surrounding. Titled The Trip, this oil on canvas 240 x 200 cm was sold by Sotheby's for HK $ 48M on April 19, 2021, lot 1121 and for $ 4.5M on May 20, 2022, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Self Portrait as Vincent van Gogh
Intro
From 2016 Ghenie revisits his beloved Self portrait as Vincent van Gogh in two series titled Degenerate Art and Lidless Eye.
Degenerate Art refers to the designation of Vincent as a degenerate artist by the Nazis. Lidless eye means watchful or vigilant as with unblinking eyes. It is also a reference to the Dark Lord in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and a reminder of a painful stare in Ghenie's eye.
The figuration follows the style of Francis Bacon, who had reinterpreted in 1960 a self portrait by Vincent. Ghenie blurs the figure in a bright sculptural impasto and distorts it beyond the limits of nausea.
Degenerate Art refers to the designation of Vincent as a degenerate artist by the Nazis. Lidless eye means watchful or vigilant as with unblinking eyes. It is also a reference to the Dark Lord in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and a reminder of a painful stare in Ghenie's eye.
The figuration follows the style of Francis Bacon, who had reinterpreted in 1960 a self portrait by Vincent. Ghenie blurs the figure in a bright sculptural impasto and distorts it beyond the limits of nausea.
1
2016 Degenerate Art
2022 SOLD for $ 9.3M by Sotheby's
A Degenerate Art painted in 2016 is based on Vincent's 1889 self portrait, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, of which it reuses the complementary colors of the fiery orange hair and the pale-turquoise background.
The source dates back to Ghenie's childhood memories of a magazine article entitled ‘The Tragic Life of Vincent van Gogh’, where the Sunflowers were printed in off-colot and that portrait in black and white.
This oil on canvas 200 x 180 cm was sold for $ 9.3M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Sotheby's on May 20, 2022, lot 14.
The source dates back to Ghenie's childhood memories of a magazine article entitled ‘The Tragic Life of Vincent van Gogh’, where the Sunflowers were printed in off-colot and that portrait in black and white.
This oil on canvas 200 x 180 cm was sold for $ 9.3M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Sotheby's on May 20, 2022, lot 14.
2
2018 Degenerate Art (with bandaged ear)
2022 SOLD for HK$ 57M by Christie's
A Degenerate Art painted in 2018 is inspired from Vincent's Self portrait with bandaged ear. Within a magma of bright colors, some details are recognizable such as the beard, the eye or the bandage. It manages to recreate Vincent's despair and physical pain after the failure of Gauguin's stay with him in Arles.
This oil on canvas 180 x 200 cm was sold for HK $ 57M from a lower estimate of HK $ 48M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 29.
This oil on canvas 180 x 200 cm was sold for HK $ 57M from a lower estimate of HK $ 48M by Christie's on November 30, 2022, lot 29.
3
2018 Lidless Eye
2020 SOLD for HK $ 55M by Sotheby's
A Lidless Eye dated 2016-2018 on the reverse, oil on canvas 180 x 150 cm, was sold for HK $ 55M from a lower estimate of HK $ 42M by Sotheby's on October 6, 2020, lot 1123.
A Lidless Eye dated 2016-2019 on the reverse, oil on canvas 185 x 170 cm, was sold for HK $ 43M by Christie's on November 28, 2023, lot 92.
Both are based on the same original self portrait whose 2016 reinterpretation in the Degenerate Art series was sold for $ 9.3M by Sotheby's in 2022.
A Lidless Eye dated 2016-2019 on the reverse, oil on canvas 185 x 170 cm, was sold for HK $ 43M by Christie's on November 28, 2023, lot 92.
Both are based on the same original self portrait whose 2016 reinterpretation in the Degenerate Art series was sold for $ 9.3M by Sotheby's in 2022.
