Adrian Ghenie The Fear of NOW

I’ve tried to create figurative painting, but using the building blocks of abstraction [...] The reasons why I’m a figurative artist and I’m not really abstract are more emotional and are to do with how I relate myself to traditional figurative painting. —Adrian Ghenie

The Fear of NOW is an exhibition of new oil paintings and charcoal drawings by Romanian-born, Berlin-based artist Adrian Ghenie. He fuses the profoundly personal with the art historical, bridging the abstract and the figurative to examine the impact of the Digital Age on the human condition.

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Adrian Ghenie identifies a seismic shift in the body language of the 21st century. A series of self-portraits illustrate a repertoire of poses that reveal the intrusive influence of the digital world in daily life: heads and torsos are bowed over screens, while hands clutch mobile phones.

I have this need to deconstruct, to destroy the body, and to put it back in a new silhouette which I call 'the impossible body'. —Adrian Ghenie

'Impossible bodies' are composed of bulbous, biomorphic forms executed in textured passages of dusky pink, purple, taupe and grey paint. Sat on chairs, or perched on the edge of desks, the figures are hunched over, engrossed in their electronic devices. Rich with the sensuousness of Baroque painting, these figurative works are punctuated by the presence of digital technology - an Apple laptop or iPhone - reconfiguring art historical conventions for 21st-century society.

The App (2022) is the sole painting in this new body of work to depict two figures together. Their interaction is mediated by a mobile phone positioned at the heart of the composition. Tendril-like strands protrude from the screen and merge with the subjects' distorted heads, visualising the transformation of modes of communication in the Digital Era.

 

The App, 2022
Oil on canvas
240 x 190 cm (94.49 x 74.8 in)

The artist draws upon diverse art historical and contemporary cultural references to construct his figurative style: from the work of Otto Dix and Philip Guston, to the hybrid, monstrous aliens in the animated series Rick and Morty. Ghenie compares the process of bringing these different references together to the incongruous imagery juxtaposed on multiple tabs open simultaneously on an internet browser.

Recognisable objects function, in the artist's words, as 'a hook to situate the viewer in reality.' In Figure with Remote Control (2022), discarded fast-food wrappers, a television and Ghenie's signature Nike trainers are the most legible elements of the painting. Together, they contextualise the contemporary landscape of the Digital Era within the domestic setting of the artist's flat.

 

Figure with Remote Control, 2022
Oil on canvas 
205 x 178 cm (80.71 x 70.1 in)

The only painting in the new body of work to feature a book in place of an electronic device, Self-Portrait with Favorite Book (2022) depicts the artist holding a large volume illustrating the paintings of Otto Dix. He explains that his interest in the artist's work resides primarily in 'the way he deals with the past [...] He knew how to work with tradition and make it very modern.' Similarly, Ghenie reimagines painterly traditions to illustrate the impact of technology on contemporary bodies as they are transformed by the digital world.

 

Self-Portrait with Favorite Book, 2022
Oil on canvas
103 x 140 cm (40.56 x 50.11 in)

I'm interested in history that's linked to the human figure. A certain type of deconstruction interests me, the same way it interested Picasso and Bacon. —Adrian Ghenie

The transformative effect of technology on the artist's practice is explored in a number of Studio Scenes. Ghenie replaces the traditional tools of artmaking with a phone or laptop, reconfiguring the conventions of the studio portrait. He explains, 'the studio practice has changed fundamentally. Before, the studio used to be a temple of solitude. Now, with these laptops and phones, there is this kind of collectivity present and you cannot get rid of it, even if you turn them off.'

 

Studio Scene 3, 2022
Oil on canvas
205 x 110 cm (80.71 x 43.31 in)

Alongside the body of self-portraits, six large-scale paintings depicting

Marilyn Monroe reconceive Andy Warhol’s iconic silkscreen prints. Occupied with the art historical image, rather than the figure of Marilyn Monroe herself, Ghenie uses his distinctive painterly style to explore the complex relationship between technology and the dissemination of images in contemporary society.

The glamorous veneer of Warhol’s image is disrupted by textured passages of paint applied and, at points, scraped back by the artist in a mode he aligns with a European, rather than an American, artistic sensibility.

 

The Marilyn paintings examine the three interconnected personas Ghenie ascribes to figures in the public sphere. Reflecting on his own experience in the art world, he describes these as the real artist, the artist working in the studio, and the myth of the artist as received by the public and disseminated in popular media. The portraits of the Hollywood star become vehicles for his deeply personal investigation of identity in the digitally-saturated ‘NOW’.

 

Untitled 6, 2022
Oil on canvas 
140 x 140 cm (55.11 x 55.11 in)

 

Untitled 5, 2022
Oil on canvas 
140 x 140 cm (55.11 x 55.11 in)
 

Adrian Ghenie employs a new drawing technique to construct the complex compositions of his figurative works. He applies charcoal to a paper primed for use with oil paint, which allows him to lay down, erase and rework his mark making. He is able to ‘rehearse’ his paintings through these preparatory studies ‘without the stress of being precise’, enacting what he describes as a ‘drawing based on mistakes’.

This innovative drawing technique informs new developments in Ghenie's painting practice. Earlier works are characterised by thick impasto and gestural swathes of paint applied with a palette knife. In contrast, the recent works take a more linear approach as the medium is applied thinly with a small brush. He compares these works to 'coloured drawings', collapsing clear distinctions between mediums in a style evocative of the figurative works of Austrian artist Egon Schiele.

 

Study for "Studio Scene 2" 2, 2022
Charcoal on paper
100 x 65 cm (39.38 x 25.6 in)

Study for "Studio Scene" 3, 2022
Charcoal on paper
100 x 65 cm (39.38 x 25.6 in)

That’s what is new in the world: you’ve got access to an infinite database of images and data. I scan my options and take whatever seems expressive enough or paintable [...] You cannot do a figurative painting if you think simply in terms of reproduction or naturalist narrative. You have to see the reality, process it, and come up with a set of symbols which will evoke that reality for you. —Adrian Ghenie

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