Painter Adrian Ghenie has been selected by Romania to represent the country at the 56th Venice Biennale, which opens to the public in just a little more than three months, on May 9.
Ghenie, was born in 1977, in the artist’s recent exhibition ‘Golems’, at the Pace Gallery, London, the gallery showed a collection of the Romanian painters figurative works. These were paintings in oil on traditional linen; in fact there are many elements to the artist’s works that reference the history of European painting, yet on that particular occasion, with the contemporary addition of juxtaposing Ghenie’s paintings with installation. Michaël Borremans and Luc Tuymans may come to mind as precedents when viewing his canvases.
The artist is represented by Pace, Tim Van Laere Gallery, and Galerie Judin, and is cofounder of Galeria Plan B, which has locations in Cluj and Berlin. Ghenie has also had solo shows at S.M.A.K. Ghent, the MCA Denver, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and been in included in quite a number of international group shows.
In the artist’s recent show at Pace London Ghenie painted with a fluidity of paint presenting the figure with elements reminiscent of the great british painter Francis Bacon. With his addition to the 56th Venice Biennale, Ghenie has some big shoes to fill. In 2013, Romania presented Alexandra Pirici and Manuel Pelmuş’s An Immaterial Retrospective of the Biennale, which received wide acclaim. In 2011, the nation presented a three-person show with Ion Grigorescu, Anetta Mona Chişa, and Lucia Tkáčová.