Painting by Romanian Adrian Ghenie sold at Hong Kong auction for EUR 5 million

"Lidless Eye" by Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie was sold in an auction at Christie's in Hong Kong for a final amount of HKD 42.7 million, equivalent to EUR 4.99 million.

The artwork, created between 2016 and 2019, is part of a series in which the artist experimented with "self-portraits like Van Gogh," while also making historical references to the relationship between art and totalitarian regimes.

Ghenie's "Lidless Eye" had been estimated between HKD 38 and 58 million, and the winning bid reached HKD 35 million, or EUR 4.11 million. This price is in addition to the auction house's commissions and other fees, resulting in a final price, equivalent to EUR 4.99 million, according to Profit.ro.

In May of the previous year, a painting from the same series, created in 2016 by Adrian Ghenie and titled "Degenerate Art," sold for USD 9.28 million, after being estimated between USD 7 and 10 million. In the same month, just a week later, but this time in Hong Kong, Ghenie's work "Pie Fight Interior 12" was auctioned for the sum of USD 10.3 million, a new record for the artist.

In Bucharest, at the Artmark auction house, a collage titled "The Lidless Eye" was sold in 2020 for EUR 67,500 (excluding taxes). 

Other paintings by Adrian Ghenie sold at auctions in Paris, London, and Hong Kong, almost every time for millions of dollars. 

Earlier this year, Ghenie's "The Uncle 3" (2019) painting, which was featured in an exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, was at the center of a lawsuit against a prominent New York Art advisor.

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(Photo source: Christies.com)