Beschreibung:

8 Property from the Katayama Collection Adrian Ghenie Follow The Collector 4 oil on canvas 200 x 240 cm (78 3/4 x 94 1/2 in.) Painted in 2009.
Provenance Galeria Plan B, Berlin Acquired from the above by the present owner Video Adrian Ghenie The Collector Canvassed Take a closer look at one of Adrien Ghenie's masterworks, 'The Collector 4'. Presented as part of the Katayama Collection, the painting belongs to a sequence of four works in which Ghenie explores the role of the obsessive collector, focusing particularly on the figure of Luftwaffe commander-in-chief, Hermann Göring. Shifting effortlessly between figuration and abstraction, the work is exemplary of Ghenie’s finesse at creating stimulating surfaces with an arresting narrative quality. Catalogue Essay One of the most prominent painters practising in contemporary art today, Adrian Ghenie’s visually arresting canvases, drenched and dashed in floods of rich colour, have become an icon of modern painting. The Collector 4, a rare and monumental work executed in 2009, is exemplary of the artist’s adroit mastery of his chosen medium, drawing upon historical and artistic currents from the twentieth century canon to produce visually stirring and psychologically complex images. Housed in the seminal collection of the creative visionary Masamichi Katayama Founder and Principal of the renowned Tokyo-based interior design practice Wonderwall, this work has never been seen before at auction. Representing Romania at the Venice Biennale in 2015, the artist’s painterly prowess has been heralded internationally, which, combined with the work’s unique provenance and exquisite impactful quality, converge to make The Collector 4 a masterwork in Ghenie’s celebrated oeuvre. The first from the series to be seen at auction, The Collector 4 belongs to a sequence of four works in which Ghenie explores the role of the obsessive collector, focusing particularly on the figure of Luftwaffe commander-in-chief, Hermann Göring. Commenting on his 2008 painting The Collector 2 , in which Göring eagerly grasps an artwork in both hands, Ghenie states that the Sturmabteilung-Gruppenführer ‘sacrificed his humanity for his obsession’ (the artist, quoted in Jane Neal, ‘Referencing slapstick cinema, art history and the annals of totalitarianism, Adrian Ghenie’s paintings find ways of confronting a ‘century of humiliation’, Art Review , December 2010). Channelling themes of manic desire and malevolence, in The Collector 4 the collector lies in his bed surrounded by paintings, his face bloated and frozen in anguish like a ghoulish death mask. What appears to be a German romantic landscape hangs from a levitating soldier overhead, a small ceiling light illuminating the edges of canvasses and the corners of the dingy room. While invoking the history of National Socialism, Ghenie’s layered canvas is rich in historical references to pre-war Germany. The present painting is a precursor to Ghenie’s 2010 work, Dada Room, which serves as a backdrop for the present canvas. The artist’s installation directly refers to the First International Dada Fair organised by Raoul Hausmann John Heartfield and George Grosz with contributions from leading Dada artists of the time, such as Hannah Höch The installation was a milestone in modern art and provided a platform for works which were soon to be deemed ‘entartete Kunst’ (degenerate art) under the National Socialist regime. The destruction of ‘un-German’ art, including works by Vincent Van Gogh Henri Matisse and many German Dada and expressionist painters, culminated in the Entartete Kunst exhibition in 1937, intended by the Nazis to showcase repulsive and subversive works which were condemned for befouling German culture. Reflecting on this period of violent censorship, the present work and Ghenie’s later series of smaller canvasses refer to the Nazi looting of modern masterpieces from museums and institutions; in the artist’s 2014 work Degenerate Art, Ghenie evokes the face of Van Gogh, twisted and tessellated in acidic brushstrokes charged with electric poignancy. In the present work, the iconic figure of the Da