{"id":1685,"date":"2022-10-17T10:43:22","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T02:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=1685"},"modified":"2022-10-17T10:43:22","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T02:43:22","slug":"for-new-series-adrian-ghenie-turns-his-disquieting-gaze-on-our-always-online-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/for-new-series-adrian-ghenie-turns-his-disquieting-gaze-on-our-always-online-today\/","title":{"rendered":"For New Series, Adrian Ghenie Turns His Disquieting Gaze on Our Always-Online Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Renowned for his portraits of history\u2019s villains and foreboding psychological scenes pointing to past collective traumas, the Romanian painter\u00a0Adrian Ghenie<\/a>\u00a0had something of a revelation during the Covid pandemic, which prompted a shift in his subject matter and practice. While visiting churches in Italy, he was struck by the way the human posture has changed: whereas in Baroque paintings the gaze of the figures was directed heavenward, out on the street he noticed everyone looking down, hunched over their phones. \u201cWe have a new body language because of digital technology, all these new gestures that inhabit our lives 24 hours a day,\u201d Ghenie told\u00a0ARTnews<\/em>\u00a0at Thaddeus Ropac in London ahead of the opening of a major show of new paintings and drawings there.<\/p>\n

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Titled \u201cThe Fear of NOW<\/a>\u201d and running October 12 to December 22, the exhibition explores the physical and social impact of digital technology and online culture in two series of contorted portraits: of the human figure and of Marilyn Monroe, based on Andy Warhol\u2019s iconic screen prints of the actress. Amalgamating references to Old Masters and today\u2019s digital consumer culture, Ghenie gives a contemporary twist to the conventions of sacred art. His painting\u00a0The Conversion\u00a0<\/em>(2022), for instance,depicts a monstrous figure seated in a white plastic chair in front of a laptop that seems to explode, radiating beams, dust, and clouds. Riffing off the dramaticiconography of Saul\u2019s conversion on the road to Damascus,\u00a0<\/em>it\u2019s a parodic reference to the \u201cconstant state of revelation we have when we go online,\u201d according to the artist.<\/p>\n

In this new body of work, Ghenie\u2019s figures are nearly all bowed over, connected to a laptop or phone by lines resembling rays or some sort of sci-fi goop, as if they are in communion. \u201cWhen you see people, especially in the evening, looking at a shiny object that generates this blue light, there\u2019s almost something mystical,\u201d Ghenie said. \u201cI can\u2019t help myself from associating that with classical Baroque paintings where you have a saint pierced by this beam of light.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Adrian Ghenie,\u00a0Figure with Remote Control<\/em>, 2022.<\/span>PHOTO: J\u00d6RG VON BRUCHHAUSEN\/\u00a9ADRIAN GHENIE\/COURTESY THADDAEUS ROPAC GALLERY, LONDON \u00b7 PARIS \u00b7 SALZBURG \u00b7 SEOUL<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Another work,\u00a0The App\u00a0<\/em>(2022),\u00a0<\/em>shows two figures facing each other in what looks like a moment of intimacy. A third figure on a phone, however, intrudes on their privacy. For Ghenie this encapsulates the way we constantly call up images on our devices so that there is always another, digital, presence intervening in our real-life exchanges. We\u2019re never truly alone anymore, he seems to say.<\/p>\n

The artist has a conflicted relationship with technology in general, verging on the phobic, by his own admission. It runs in the male line of his family, he said. His father always refused to speak on the phone, while his 58-year-old brother has never used email. \u201cIn the \u201990s when I was a student, everyone knew if you called me on the phone, my mother was instructed to say, \u2018He\u2019s not at home,\u2019\u201d Ghenie recalled. He shuns social media\u2014although a fan page, which someone set up without his knowing on Instagram under @Adrian.Ghenie, has 30K followers\u2014and he makes no attempt to correct inaccurate posts. \u201cI don\u2019t want to interfere with the forming of this creature. And this creature looks like that,\u201d he said, pointing to one of his paintings on the wall. So the \u201cFear\u201d of the exhibition\u2019s title is his very much his own. \u201cI realize I might have an allergy or a phobia to the very thing that bites everyone today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Several works titled\u00a0Impossible Bodies<\/em>\u00a0feature elephantine heads and deformed physiques which sprout wormlike protuberances and multiple body parts in random places. These works start with a self-portrait taken on Ghenie\u2019s laptop and then build out from there, accumulating motion and outlandish forms far removed from accurate anatomical depictions. The artist cited Picasso, Giacometti, and Baconas his forbears in the breaking down and reconstruction of the human form. However, the cartoonish grotesqueness of these latest figures marks something of a departure for Ghenie.<\/p>\n

The change came about during the pandemic, he explained, when he was isolated in his studio. Having previously employed collage in preparation for his paintings, he began drawing instead as a sort of rehearsal and found an unexpected freedom in the medium. \u201cSomehow I discovered a need which I did not know before,\u201d he said, \u201ca tendency toward the grotesque and caricature and I said, \u2018That\u2019s funny\u2014don\u2019t censor yourself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n<\/div>
Adrian Ghenie,\u00a0Untitled 6<\/em>, 2022.<\/span>PHOTO: J\u00d6RG VON BRUCHHAUSEN\/\u00a9ADRIAN GHENIE\/COURTESY THADDAEUS ROPAC GALLERY, LONDON \u00b7 PARIS \u00b7 SALZBURG \u00b7 SEOUL<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

This sense of liberation is mirrored in his sources of inspiration, which increasingly derive not from other artists but from cartoons and science fiction, of which he has always been a huge fan. The irreverent animated sci-fi series\u00a0Rick and Morty<\/em>\u00a0is a particular favorite. \u201cIn\u00a0R<\/em>ick and Morty<\/em>, what is a wrong body? There\u2019s no such thing. If you want to have 500 legs you will have 500 legs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ghenie has applied this same freedom to his portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Coincidentally, these works came about through another mini epiphany. Having watched\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Andy Warhol Diaries<\/em>\u00a0on Netflix, the artist happened to visit Christie\u2019s website since he had a work on sale with the auction house. (That work was 2014\u2019s\u00a0Pie Fight Interior 12<\/em>, which in May set his auction record of $10.3 million.) On the house\u2019s website, he encountered an installation photograph of Warhol\u2019s\u00a0Shot Sage Blue Marilyn\u00a0<\/em>and was transfixed, despite never having had any interest in the Pop artist previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuddenly I had this Marilyn-Warhol explosion into my life,\u201d he said. He was shocked by the almost religious power of the image: \u201cIt is glowing. It\u2019s almost like it\u2019s a small miracle and you just want to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ghenie felt compelled to incorporate Warhol\u2019s Marilyn into his practice. Retaining only the actress\u2019s blond hair, lips, and one eye in place, he deconstructed Warhol\u2019s smooth image, giving the star the\u00a0Rick and Morty<\/em>\u00a0treatment<\/a>, so that the end result is almost an alien version with misplaced features and tubular organic forms growing from her head. The portraits somehow evoke Monroe\u2019s vulnerability and even ugliness behind the celebrity mask, although Ghenie\u2019s fascination is not with Monroe the person but her image and the way she has been kept alive online.<\/p>\n

For someone with a phobia of modern technology, Ghenie thrillingly juxtaposes traditional materials such as paint on canvas with uber contemporary references to the latest devices, tapping into the essence of our digitized existence today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Source: https:\/\/www.artnews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renowned for his portraits of history\u2019s villains and foreboding psychological scenes pointing to past collective traumas, the Romanian painter\u00a0Adrian Ghenie\u00a0had something of a revelation during the Covid pandemic, which prompted a shift in his subject matter and practice. While visiting churches in Italy, he was struck by the way the human posture has changed: whereas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news"},"yoast_head":"\nFor New Series, Adrian Ghenie Turns His Disquieting Gaze on Our Always-Online Today - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Renowned for his portraits of history\u2019s villains and foreboding psychological scenes pointing to past collective traumas, the Romanian painter\u00a0Adrian Ghenie\u00a0had something of a revelation during the Covid pandemic, which prompted a shift in his subject matter and practice.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/for-new-series-adrian-ghenie-turns-his-disquieting-gaze-on-our-always-online-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For New Series, Adrian Ghenie Turns His Disquieting Gaze on Our Always-Online Today - 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