Adrian Ghenie, Million-Euro Artist, Returns to Romania

Considered by critics, but also by art lovers, perhaps the best-known and best-rated contemporary Romanian artist internationally, Adrian Ghenie returns to an auction in Romania with a large and expressive work. It is an intricate “Self-Portrait” of youth (made in 2003-2004), which is available in the “Artmark Auction of Postmodern and Contemporary Art, including a charity sequence for the awarding of a scholarship to encourage the research of Romanian art”, an event that presents to the public over 200 contemporary creations and which will take place on Tuesday, February 20, from 7 p.m., both at Cesianu-Racoviță Palace, and online, on the Artmark Live platform.

The exceptional work in the auction, whose price starts at 50,000 euros, presents one of his first known self-portraits and dates from what the artist called “a strange period”, with many searches, when he emigrated to Austria and was as young as on what to give up painting. Originally from Baia Mare, Adrian Ghenie has set new sales records in recent years. His painting “Pie fight Interior 12”, made in 2014, was recently awarded in May 2022 for €8,000,000 at an auction in Hong Kong. At profile events in Romania, his record for another compositional self-portrait (2006-2009) was registered at Artmark, in December 2019, for 150,000 euros.

The new event of Casa A10 by Artmark also brings together the most important Romanian postmodern artists, among which there is also a small collection of works belonging to Marcel Iancu, coming from different periods and made in different techniques, from lithography to abstract paintings in oil.

Two of these works, painted in the classical technique of oil on canvas in the manner of lyrical abstraction, are called “Composition with Masks and a Drum” and “Abstract Composition” and are conservatively estimated at €1,500-2,500.