Adrian Ghenie and Ciprian Muresan

Opening Reception Saturday, December 15, 2007, 6-8pm

Kontainer Gallery is pleased to present new work from the Romanian artists Adrian Ghenie and Ciprian Muresan.

Ghenie draws his inspiration from personal memories of growing up in a dictatorial regime. He witnessed history being written and rewritten, first hand and that "surrealistic" period of transition left a deep impact on him. Ghenie is hoping to find himself in the grey area between a movie script and the real life. In a society thrown in fast forward, Ghenie feels like he is passing through a series of rooms loaded with history and subconscious dark private fears.

Ciprian Muresan's practice is not confined to a specific medium. He does video, drawings, installations and the occasional photograph or painting and it is his acute sense of time that clearly outlines his oeuvre. "When you see a nine-year-old girl making that throat-cutting sign, it's clear that something is going to happen, unless it's already happened. But when things turn upside down and life goes on as if nothing had happened, it becomes unbearable. It is as if the very possibility for an event to take place were suspended." Ovidiu Tichindeleanu

Adrian Ghenie has recently shown in "Expanded Painting", Prague Bienalle, in group shows at David Nolan Gallery, New York and Rudiger Schottle, Munich, Germany and is currently having a solo show at Haunch of Venison, Zurich.

Ciprian Muresan has shown this year in the Prague Bienalle, The Athens Bienalle and in "Dada East, the Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire" in Zurich (travelled to Stockholm) and has had solo shows at Kontainer Los Angeles and Raster Warsaw. In June 2008 he will present an installation of his work in the Statements section of Art 39 Basel 2008.

Adrian Ghenie and Ciprian Muresan