HONG KONG.- Christie’s, in partnership with HomeArt, announced【Flesh and Soul: Bacon/Ghenie】, a joint exhibition of over 15 masterpieces by Francis Bacon and Adrian Ghenie, to be held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre from 21 to 29 May 2022, as a special highlight during the week of Christie’s Spring Preview and Auctions. Thiswill be an event remarkable for its many "firsts" –the first Francis Bacon exhibition in Hong Kong, the first Adrian Ghenie exhibition in Asia, and the world’s first joint exhibition for the two iconic artists. After Hong Kong, the collection will travel to additional locations in Asia.
Hailed as one of the most important painters of the 20thcentury, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was a prolific artist who focused on portraiture that articulated violence, tension and turbulence, life’s glorious agony. His works are held in almost every major public collection around the world and are highly coveted by elite collectors, regularly achieving eight figures and more at international auctions. His “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” (1969) sold for US$142millionat Christie’s New York in 2014, setting the record for the world’s most valuablepainting at the time.
Like Bacon a generation before, Adrian Ghenie (b. 1977) uses his art to address traumas of humanity, but with a preoccupation with mass sufferings and the forces of good and evil. His techniques of pouring, dripping,and knifing are unorthodox, creating canvases that are rough and jagged, conveying darkness and torment, often with a cinematic feel. Internationally acclaimed, Ghenie’s works are held in the collections of Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, S.M.A.K., Ghent, the Long Museum, Shanghai, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.
Cristian Albu, Co-Headof Department, 20thand 21stCentury Art, Christie’s Asia Pacific, commented, "This exhibition, the first of its kind, explores the fascinating parallels between two extraordinary painters of the modern era. Featuring masterpieces such as Bacon’s Seated Figure (1960)and Two Studies for a Self-Portrait (1970), and Ghenie’s Collector 3 (2008)and The Sunflowers in 1937(2014), the exhibition will place their works in dramatic conversation."
Elaine Holt, Deputy Chairman and International Director, Christie’s Asia Pacific,added, "The bond that binds Bacon and Ghenie together is their ingenuity to seamlessly fuse figurative with abstract, reinterpreting the message of past masters such as Rembrandt and Velázquez with Abstract Expressionism. One can also see in them the turbulent, existential vision of Van Gogh. Together but in their own way, Bacon and Ghenie instilled into the flesh of the classics a new, modern soul."
