Adrian Ghenie solo exhibition at Kupferstich-Kabinett Battleground Studio: Works on Paper

Adrian Ghenie (b. 1977 in Romania) is one of the most celebrated artists of his generation. From 13 December 2024, the Kupferstich-Kabinett is dedicating a solo exhibition to his drawings and collages from the last 20 years. The show features around 50 works that provide a comprehensive overview of his oeuvre. A selection of paintings will be juxtaposed with works on paper. 

Ghenie is interested in the ideologies and catastrophes of the 20th century, which the artist himself describes as an era of 'humiliation'. In the gloomy setting of his pictures, whose motifs are often taken from art history, surprising constellations of deformed figures reflect the physical and psychological wounds caused by dictatorships and wars as well as threats to individual freedom.

Although Ghenie is primarily a painter, his drawings and collages now play a important role in his work and are therefore being presented by the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett in this exhibition, which shows their development and significance for the first time. The distorted faces in his early pie fight pictures are iconic metaphors for human humiliation and the erasure of individual identity. The technique of figural deconstruction, inspired by Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning, among others, is also used by Ghenie in his collages. In many cases, these form the basis for his paintings. In the charcoal drawings of recent years, Ghenie brings his theme into the present by finding images that express the effects on people of the omnipresent digital media.