ADRIAN GHENIE
b. 1977, RomaniaAdrian Ghenie is recognized for his innovative blend of figuration and abstraction, which he uses to delve into the complexity of modern life.
After gaining international recognition for his paintings elaborating figures from history and art history, Ghenie shifted his focus to the present during the pandemic. During this time, the ambiguous nature of connection offered by digital devices became especially evident—constantly connected yet never physically close. This state, which reflects the broader condition of our era, affects not only our psychological well-being but also our physical demeanor, resulting in postures that are unique to this specific moment in history: Ghenie’s “Torsos are undone into spiraling flimsiness, skulls become baroque enclosures, limbs twist or twitch and eyeballs work like hinges in the rotations of an abstract, panoramic optics.” Curator Mihnea Mircan writes, “The vitality of gestures and the torsion of postures in the paintings is not an occasion to compose movement as extension or purpose, as fragment from a destiny. Rather than propelled by an inner need, it seems to happen, catastrophically or at least begrudgingly, from the outside – as a force that is exterior to these brittle bodies, marionetted by their circumstances. Their appearance is laboriously discomposed, rendered as a swirling mass of expansions and contractions.”
Ghenie questions the relationships between technology, consumerism, and identity. His work serves as a powerful reflection on the pervasive effects of digital immersion, highlighting the feelings of alienation and fragmentation in an increasingly digitized world.
Adrian Ghenie, born 1977 in Baia Mare, Romania, lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Solo exhibitions include: Shadow Paintings, Albertina Museum, Vienna (2024); Battleground Studio: Adrian Ghenie – Works on Paper, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (2024); Adrian Ghenie, Galeria Plan B, Berlin (2023); Adrian Ghenie: The __Impossible Body, Art Encounters Foundation, Timisoara, (2023); The Fear of NOW, Thaddaeus Ropac, London (2022); We Had Everything Before Us, Galerie Judin, Berlin (2021); The Hooligans, Pace Gallery, New York (2020); ‘I have turned my only face.’, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2019); The Battle between Carnival __and Feast, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice (2019); Jungles in Paris, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2018); Nightscape, Plan B, Berlin (2017); Recent Paintings, Pace Gallery, New York (2017); Darwin’s Room, the Romanian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015); New Paintings, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris (2015); Contemporary Art Center (CAC), Malaga (2014); On the Road to ... Tarascon, Plan B, Berlin (2013, with Navid Nuur); Pie-Fights and Pathos, Museum for Contemporary Art, Denver (2012); S.M.A.K. Museum, Ghent (2010); The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (2009).
Selected groupexhibitions include: The Seven Celestial Senses, Hôtel de la Marine, Paris (2025); _One Eye Laughing, the Other Crying. Art From Romania. Ovidiu Șandor Collection_, The International Cultural Centre, Krakow (2025);_ Hocus Focus_, Conector / OFF-space, Cluj Napoca (2025);_ XXH – Exposition anniversaire_, Fondation Francès, Paris (2024);_ DIX AND THE PRESENT, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg (2023); Looking Anew and Beyond, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke (2023); Lost in the Moment That Follows, Ways of Collecting: Ovidiu Șandor Collection_, Kunsthalle Praha, Prague (2023);_ Beating Around the Bush #7: False Flat_, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (2022);_ Diversity United. Contemporary European Art, Moscow. Berlin. Paris., Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; Tempelhof Airport, Berlin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021); Geta Bratescu, Adrian Ghenie, Ciprian Muresan, Serban Savu, Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome (2019); Niko Pirosmani_, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles (2019);_ Une saison roumaine_, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2018);_ Painting the Night_, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (2018);_ Très Traits_, Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles (2016);_ Mapping Bucharest: Art, Memory and Revolution 1916 – 2016_, MAK, Vienna (2015); I will go there, take me home, The Metropolitan Art Center, Belfast (2015);_ Six Lines of Flight_, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), San Francisco (2012);_ Painting Forever_, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art (KW), Berlin (2013);_ Francis Bacon and the Existential Condition in Contemporary Art_, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (2012).
Courtesy Galeria Plan B
Works at Galeria Plan B
Recently Exhibited
Works Elsewhere
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