EUR 3 million for Adrian Ghenie’s masterpieces at Sotheby’s auction

Newsroom 30/06/2016 | 09:44

According to the official press release of Sotheby’s auction house, on June 28, seven bidders drove Ghenie’s The Hunted (2010 – in picture) to GDP 1.9m / USD 2.5m /  EUR 2.2m – among the top three prices for the artist at auction, for a painting estimated at GDP 400,000-600,000 / USD 580,000-870,000. The Hunted was sold to an Asian private buyer.

Also, the artist’s Self-Portrait as a Monkey (2011) more than tripled the pre-sale estimate to make GDP 665,000 / USD 883,586 / EUR 797,338, while the painting was estimated at GDP 150,000-200,000 / USD 217,000-290,000.

“When Adrian Ghenie was a child, Romania was ruled by Nicolae Ceaușescu’s tyrannical Communist regime. With the political oppression of World War II still tangibly resonating, the figures and events of the war were prescient for any child growing up in the Communist Eastern Bloc. Today this ominous political backdrop comprises the very fabric of Adrian Ghenie’s extraordinary work. Entitled The Hunted and created in 2010 for an exhibition of the very same name, this painting is heady with the lingering portent of malevolence and atrocity. Depicting a baboon defensively backed into a Klimt-esque birchwood forest yet curiously set in a modernist interior, this painting is bewildering and uneasy. Upon closer inspection we notice a giant moth set upon the same table as the monkey then soon realise that the Scandinavian forest setting is in fact a peeling expanse of ‘photo wallpaper’ – the kind that was popular in the 1970s, which became something of a status symbol in Communist Romania owing to its scarce availability. Herein, this work is archetypal of this painter’s practice: invoking the autobiographical and melding it with the symbolic currency of his subjects – the Baboon charts a long history in the personification of evil whilst simultaneously invoking the birth of Darwinism – this painting is Ghenie at his conceptual and technical finest”, is the catalogue’s note for the paiting.

In May this year, another painting by Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie was sold at the Sotheby’s auction house, for a price that smashed all initial estimates. The company said that Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese businessman and collector, paid USD 2.59 million for Adrian Ghenie’s self-portrait as Vincent Van Gogh from 2012.

Also, in February, a new record was set for Adrian Ghenie when the colossal van-Gogh inspired “Sunflowers in 1937” (2014) soared over estimate to £3.1 million / $4.5 million. The amount received is more than double since the previous auction record for the artist (£1.4m set at Sotheby’s, June 2014). Sotheby’s added that the final bid price was more than eight times the high estimate.

Oana Vasiliu

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