Sebastian Bieniek - “Ghost Rider No. 59” (Amy Winehouse)

With the purchase you receive a certificate of authenticity issued in your name

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THE ARTWORK:

For sale is an overpainted photograph of the late British singer Amy Winehouse. Painted with acrylics on cardboard that is mounted on wood (MDF, about 2 mm thick).

Size: 31 x 31.5 cm.
Front and back signed by hand. On the back titled and stamped.


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ABOUT THE SERIES:

The series “Ghost Riders” by the Berlin-based artist Sebastian Bieniek plays with ideas of guardian angels and fate in connection with the tragically shortened lives of deceased celebrities – especially from the realms of music, acting, literature, and art – and questions whether their tragic end was perhaps part of their success and thus fated from the start.

In this way the series serves, on the one hand, as a kind of extended “Club 27” (to which musicians like Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain belong, who died at the age of 27) and, on the other hand, as a continuation of the series work “Doublefaced”; because here too the second figure – and thus the second half of the “self” – is embodied by a subject that resides beyond physical perception on another, meta level.

Thus the “self” exists on two levels: a realistic one and a meta level, which is linked to ideas of guardian angels and fate – and in a broader sense to the world itself.

The work thus taps into the ancient, universal concept of a world divided into two parts – for example in the distinction between “ancestors and the living,” “humans and gods,” or even “software and hardware,” which ultimately is nothing more than a separation into “idea and body” or “command and action.”

Bieniek seeks in his work a visible form for both – and thus for the whole.


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THE ARTIST:

The artist Sebastian Bieniek was born in 1975 in Poland. He studied art at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) and at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) with Marina Abramović, John M. Armleder, and Katharina Sieverding, and between 1998 and 2000 was a member of the Berlin “Kunsthaus Tacheles,” known at the time as the city’s artistic center, where he shared a studio with artist Chiharu Shiota.

During that time Bieniek became known for his drastic actions and conceptual art. He later studied film directing and made films. By 2008 he returned to painting and, by 2013 at the latest, he became world-famous for his paintings and photographs with ambivalent messages and depictions.

From 2013 his works spread virally worldwide several times, were shown on television and in the world’s largest and most important magazines, and achieved not only broad reach and recognition but also influence in the music and even fashion worlds.

For instance, American musician Pharrell Williams showed a Bieniek work several times in his 2014 hit video “Marylin Monroe,” and even the singer Madonna contacted Bieniek in 2016 (Vogue Spain article) and asked him to design the cover for her “X-Album.” In Paris Fashion Week 2015, French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus had his models walk the runway with a face personally painted by Bieniek on the fashion show, winning the prestigious LVMH Special Jury Prize. In 2015 Sebastian Bieniek was named by The Culture Trip Magazine as one of the “Top 5 Influential Contemporary Berlin-Based Artists.”

After 2019 Bieniek mainly created socio-political conceptual works that often integrated humorous and ironical ideas. In this way he remained true to his always-subversive motto and definition of art and never let himself be co-opted or used.