Adrian Ghenie (; born 13 August 1977 in

Baia Mare Baia Mare ( , ; hu, Nagybánya; german: Frauenbach or Groß-Neustadt; la, Rivulus Dominarum) is a municipality along the Săsar River, in northwestern Romania; it is the capital of Maramureș County. The city lies in the region of Maramur ...

) is a

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

n painter, who lives and works in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, Germany.

Early life and education

The son of a dentist, he studied fine arts at the Arts and Crafts School in Baia Mare between 1991 and 1994. He is a graduate of the

Art and Design University of Cluj-Napoca The Art and Design University ( ro, italic=yes, Universitatea de Artă şi Design, UAD;) is an art university located in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It was founded on November 15, 1925, as the ''Fine Arts School of Cluj''. Formerly known as Academy o ...

(2001).

Career

Ghenie lives and works in

Cluj ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Status , subdivision_name2 = County seat , settlement_type = City , le ...

, and

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. In 2005, he co-founded Galeria Plan B in Cluj, together with Mihai Pop, a production and exhibition space for contemporary art. In 2008 Plan B opened a permanent exhibition space in Berlin. His work has been widely exhibited in group and solo exhibitions, including at

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development C ...

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

and Fondazione

Palazzo Strozzi Palazzo Strozzi is a palace in Florence, Italy. History The construction of the palace was begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to the city in November 1466 and desired the ...

in Florence. In June 2014 the oil on canvas painting "''The Fake Rothko''" was sold for £1,426,000 ($2,428,140). In February 2016, the large oil on canvas painting "''The Sunflowers of 1937''" inspired by

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

's famous "''

Sunflowers ''Helianthus'' () is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae commonly known as sunflowers. Except for three South American species, the species of ''Helianthus'' are native to N ...

''" was sold in London for £3,177,000 at a Sotheby's auction, marking it the most expensive painting sold by the Romanian artist. Before the auction, the value of the painting was estimated between £400,000 and £600,000. It belonged to the Galerie Judin of Berlin, who had purchased it from the artist.

Collections

Ghenie's work is represented in numerous major museum and public collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp The Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp ( nl, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, commonly abbreviated as ''M HKA'', previously ''MuHKA'') is the contemporary art museum of the city of Antwerp, Belgium. Its current director is Bart de Baere. Overvie ...

, and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst,

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

Style and technique

Ghenie does not use traditional tools of the painter or brushes, but a

palette knife A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. It is primarily used for applying paint to the canvas, mixing paint colors, adding texture to the painted surface, paste, etc., or for marbling, decora ...

and stencils. He paints portraits of 20th century figures, particularly those associated with genocide and mass suffering, that appear in his work gnawed and slashed, blurred and speckled. His painterly style has been compared to that of

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Exhibitions

References

External links

*
www.nolan-judin.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghenie, Adrian 1977 births Romanian expatriates in Germany Living people People from Baia Mare Romanian artists 20th-century Romanian painters 21st-century Romanian painters