MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is pleased to present Adrian Jeftichew’s first exhibition in the United States.

Adrian Jeftichew displays a personality conflict. He is torn between the will to establish a strong personal brand as an artist of his own and the emergence of a superficially imposed branding from the art world’s perception of himself as exotic. In his very first show at La Chaussette in Brussels, Jeftichew chose to express himself in a ‘natural’ way, art thus functioning as a catalyst for emotions, originality, and personality. As this was perceived as ‘outsiderish’, he went on to create more formalist paintings, which he hoped would earn him critical acclaim. During the installation of his second exhibition at Galerie Parisa Kind in Frankfurt Jeftichew realized that these paintings still bore too many traces of his own character. Thus, in a radical gesture, he wallpapered over the whole show, covering all of the paintings on view. His third exhibition at Autocenter in Berlin used personalized imagery more consciously and more precisely, in an attempt to reflect on his own situation as an artist and the institutionalization of understandable, ‘easier’ semiotics. Jeftichew further explored this theme in his most recent exhibition at TENT Rotterdam, which primarily focused on questioning interpersonal relations and art networks.

Adrian Jeftichew’s exhibition at Ludlow 38 will display a wide range of media associated with the early to mid-1990s, Russia, Gilles de Rais, and hair combing styles, as well as attempts to flatten out or subvert these overloaded references with conceptual ideas, abstract notions, or universal principles. Materials that represent the categorization of inherited social dispositions will be confronted with tropes that legitimize self-expression.

Adrian Jeftichew (*1983) lives and works in Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include Adrian Jeftichew, La Chaussette, Brussels, 2010; L’Homme Qui Rit, Parisa Kind, Frankfurt, 2010; The Shrimps, Autocenter at based in Berlin, Berlin, 2011; and Praha, TENT, Rotterdam, 2012.

Curated by Jakob Schillinger