Victor Man
‘Man puts together art history, personal life, religion, sex, and the subconscious on canvas, refusing to discard anything vague, to obliterate obscurity, and to counter instead the dissimulated rational clarity and theoretical pride of so many advanced artists.
Fully melancholic, cold but contorted, Victor Man shuns anything jocular, anything that solves problems in an illuminating way. Until recently he had to cover up this Romantic embrace of the purity of the soul and the ensuing damnation by disseminating cultural allegories with fabricated cognitive clues, inside of which an actually obscure, muddy subjectivity thrived, impenitently bathing in nonsense, abjection, and anxiety. The blacks only signaled the dark path through memory, oblivion, obliteration and objectless nostalgia. A true anti-Gauguin, Victor Man found Tahiti right in his studio, inside nearby museums. Folded textiles replaced ripe fruits, lead moonlight replaced the scorching sun.’
Erwin Kessler, ‘Every Lead Evening’, in Victor Man, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Neu / Cologne: Walther König, 2020, p. 18.
Image: Untitled (From Wounds and Starry Dreams), 2022, oil on canvas. Photo: def image
Selected Works
Solo Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1974
Born
2007
Represented Romania at the 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
2014
Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year
Lives in Europe across several cities
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Centre International d'Art et du Paysage, île de Vassivière
Collection of Contemporary Art of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn
David Roberts Collection, London
Deutsche Bank Collection, Berlin
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (GAMeC), Bergamo
Kadist Art Foundation Collection, Paris / San Francisco
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Museum of Modern Art San Francisco (SFMOMA)
National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), Bucharest
Städel Museum, Frankfurt
Tate, London
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Städel Museum, Frankfurt
2022
Eyelids, Towards Evening
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
From Wounds and Starry Dreams
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
2021
1837, Abbozzo per un Autoritratto
Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome
2020
Die Rose ist ohne Warum. Sie blühet, weil sie blühet
Galerie Neu, Berlin
2018
Flowering Ego
Gladstone Gallery, New York
The Chandler
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City
Entrelacs (duo show with Navid Nuur)
Centre d'Édition Contemporaine, Geneva
2017
Blum & Poe, Tokyo
Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch, Donaueschingen
2016
Luminary Petals on a Wet, Black Bough
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
MD72 / Galerie Neu, Berlin
2015
Gladstone Gallery, New York
2014
Zephir
Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, Berlin; also travelled to:
Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw;
Haus der Kunst, Munich
2013
The Third Cover
Galerie Neu, Berlin
In un altro aprile
Villa Medici – French Academy, Rome
Szindbád
Gladstone Gallery, Brussels
2012
Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg
The White Shadow of His Talent
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2011
Lazarus Protocol
Transmission Gallery, Glasgow
The Painting, the Drawing, and Other Objects and Situations (duo show with Dan Perjovschi)
Kunsthalle Lingen; also travelled to:
Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck
2010
The Dust of Others
Galleria Zero, Milan
2009
If Mind Were All There Was
Hayward Gallery Project Space, London
Gladstone Gallery, New York
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Centre International d'Art et du Paysage, île de Vassivière
2008
attebasile
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Black Hearts Always Bleed Red
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
On relative loneliness
Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC), Bergamo
2007
Without going into the extravagance that’s in trees
Galleria Zero, Milan
Vestigial specialization on its way out
Johnen Galerie, Berlin
Johnen + Schöttle, Cologne
2006
With the First Totters
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
The place I’m coming from
Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
2005
Farewell till next time
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam
Plan B, Cluj
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022
Notte Oscura – Conversation Piece Part VIII
Fondazione Memmo, Rome
Interior
Michael Werner, London
Common Ground: UCCA 15th Anniversary Patrons Collection Exhibition
UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Shanghai
2021
Fore-edge Painting
Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome
Carnivalesca. What Painting Might Be
Kunstverein Hamburg
When in Doubt, Go to a Museum
City Museum of Ljubljana
2020
Drawing 2020
Gladstone Gallery, New York
Psychic Wounds: On Art & Trauma
The Warehouse, Rachofsky Collection, Dallas
2019
On the spiritual matter of art
MAXXI Museum, Rome
Werethings
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
La Plage
Galleria Zero, Milan
Claude Mirrors
Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin
Louise Giovanelli
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
La Brique, the Brick, Caramida
La Kunsthalle, Mulhouse
Ex-East. Past and recent stories of the Romanian avant-garde
Espace Niemeyer, Paris
2018
Une saison roumaine au Centre Pompidou
Centre Pompidou, Paris
TRICOLOR
MARe – Muzeul de Arta Recenta, Bucharest
Alle. Künstlerinnen und Künstler in der Overbeck-Gesellschaft 1918–2018
Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck
Contemporary Dialogues with Tintoretto
Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca’ d’Oro, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Palazzo Ducale, Venice
Lilia & Tulipan
Kunsthalle Lingen
2017
In Search of Characters...
Galerie Neu, Berlin
The New Frontiers of Painting
Fondazione Stelline, Milan
Life a User's Manual
Contemporary Art Biennial, Timisoara
The act of drinking a Coke by yourself is the lowest form of art
Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan
Thinking Out Loud: Notes For An Evolving Collection
The Warehouse, Dallas
Pélamide
Gladstone Gallery, Brussels
Con amore più che con amore
Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC), Bergamo
Open Ended: Painting and Sculpture Since 1900
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (SFMOMA)
Dissolve into a red dwarf
Island, Brussels
2016
Identity Revisited
The Warehouse, Dallas
Cher(e)s Ami(e)s: Hommage aux Donateurs des Collections Contemporaines
Centre Pompidou, Paris
These Strangers...Painting and People
S.M.A.K., Ghent
QUAND FONDRA LA NEIGE, OU IRA LE BLANC. Contemporary collecting at Palazzo Fortuny. Artworks from Enea Righi Collection
Palazzo Fortuny, Venice
Track Changes (curated by Plan B)
Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo
DÉPENSES
Labanque, Béthune
Quodlibet
Lempertz, Brussels
Monstres et Madones
Triple V, Paris
2015
All the World’s Futures: 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Central Pavilion Giardini, Venice
2014
Mirror
Frith Street Gallery, London
20 Years Galerie Neu
Galerie Neu, Berlin
Franz Graf – Siehe was dich sieht
21er Haus - Nationalmuseum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Vienna
States of Mind
Maison Particulière, Brussels
Álmoskönyv
Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; also travelled to:
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
Vertigo in Painting
Centre D’art du Grand Quevilly
The Empty Pedestal
Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna
Imitatio Christie's. partoftheprocess6
Galleria Zero, Milan
2013
Utopia Starts Small
12th Fellbach Triennale
Nightfall. New Tendencies in Figurative Painting
Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague
Invited Artist in the Guest Room of Mircea Cantor's Exhibition Q.E.D.
MNAC / National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest
DISLESSICA
Bianca Arte Contemporanea, Palermo
Nur hier: Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn
Ein vages Gefühl des Unbehagens
Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle
GEN X
Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di San Marino
1:1
Atelier 35, Bucharest
partoftheprocess5
Galleria Zero, Milan
Cattedrale
Instituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome
2012
La Triennale. Intense Proximity
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (SFMOMA)
European Travellers, Art from Cluj Today
Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest
A House of Leaves
David Roberts Art Foundation, London
Salonul de vara
Galeria Plan B, Cluj
Nightfall
MODEM, Debrecen
Fremde Überall – Foreigners Everywhere
Jewish Museum, Vienna
2011
A Geographical Expression
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin
Salonul de mai
Galeria Plan B, Cluj
Caderea
Muzeul de Arta, Cluj
Curated by
Galerie Charim, Vienna
2010
14th Vilnius Painting Triennial
Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius
Der Offene Garten
Kunsthalle Lingen
Romanian Cultural Resolution
Spinnerei, Leipzig
Tanzimat
Augarten Contemporary, Belvedere Museum, Vienna
Berlin show #2
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
Household Goods
Haifa Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art, Haifa
The Concrete Garden
off-site project, organised by Centre international d’Art et du Paysage, île de Vassiviére
Antidote 6
Galerie des Galeries, Galeries Lafayette, Paris
PPP, Public Private Paintings
Mu.Zee, Ostend
2009
Sequelism: Part 3 Possible, Probable and Preferable Futures
Arnolfini, Bristol
In the Time of Art
Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires
Biennale Estuaire Nantes / St Nazaire
Frac des Pays de la Loire Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain, Carquefou
Dreaming the Mainstream
Vilma Gold Gallery, London
When the mood strikes
Museum Dhont-Dhaenens, Deurle
Lesposizione Universale
Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GAMeC), Bergamo
Reframing
Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Andratx (CCA), Mallorca
15th Anniversary Inaugural Exhibition
Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2008
Wessen Geschichte / Whose (His)story
Kunstverein Hamburg
Locked-in
Casino Luxembourg - Form d'Art Contemporain
Back to Black
Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover, Hanover
Persona
Centre d'Art Contemporain du Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux
Kabul 3000: Love Among The Cabbages
Galleria Zero, Milan
Expenditure, Busan Biennale
Busan Museum of Modern Art
Art Focus 5. International Biennial of Contemporary Art
Jerusalem
Re-Construction. Young Artists Biennial
Bucharest
Berlin show #1
Galeria Plan B, Berlin
2007
Low-Budget Monuments. 52nd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Vernezia
Romanian Pavilion, Venice
Gesellschaftsbilder
Kunstverein Hamburg
House Trip
Art Forum Berlin
Duet
Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York
Makers and Modelers
Gladstone Gallery, New York
More or less in the same place or another
Galeria Plan B, Cluj
Past, Present, Future Perfect: Selections from the Ovitz Family Collection
H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute
Paper Baglady & Other Stories
Timothy Taylor Gallery, London
Prague Biennale 3
Prague
Filaturen
Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf
2006
Farewell to Icon
Anna Helwing Gallery, Los Angeles
Cluj Connection
Haunch of Venison, Zurich
AWOL
Biennial of Young Artists, Bucharest
The Sun on the Wall
Pavel House, Laafeld
Icon
Chung King Project, Los Angeles
Willa Warszawa, Warsaw
partoftheprocess2
Galeria Zero, Milan
Dark Dreams
Johnen + Schöttle, Cologne
2005
Post Fragile
Analix Forever, Geneva
Expanded Painting
Prague Biennale 2
Fragile
Analix Forever, Geneva
2004
Museum of Art, Cluj
2003
City Art Museum Ljubljana, Mestna Galerija 1
Views 2
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Facing the Real
Artists House, Jerusalem
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Victor Man, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Neu, 2020
Victor Man: Childhood Drawings for Rózsa, exh. cat., Geneva: Centre D’Edition Contemporaine, 2018
D. Paparoni. Le Nuove Frontiere Della Pittura, exh. cat., Fondazione delle Stelline, Milan; Milan: Skira, 2017
Victor Man: Luminary Petals On A Wet, Black Bough, exh. cat., Berlin: Galeria Plan B / Sternberg Press, 2016
T. Slama, Victor Man, exh. cat., New York, Gladstone Gallery, 2015
Victor Man: Szindbád. Artist of the Year by Deutsche Bank, exh. cat., Berlin: Deutsche Bank / Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2014
If Mind Were All There Was: Nine Themes on Giuseppe Sacchi, exh. cat., Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; Milan: Kaleidoscope Press, 2011
Victor Man: attebasile, exh. cat., Birmingham: Ikon Gallery / Centre international d’art et du paysage de l’île de Vassivière
Y. Dziewior, T. Morton, H.U. Obrist, and A. Rabottini, Victor Man, exh. cat., GAMec, Galleria D’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Bergamo; Zurich: JRP/Rinigier, 2008
B. Schwabsky, Victor Man: The Place I’m Coming From, exh. cat., London: Timothy Taylor Gallery, 2006
Videos
Selected Press
Slash September 2022
Beaux Arts February 2020
