ADAM MCEWEN, mixed media
While working for the Daily Telegraph, Oxford graduate Adam McEwen, 41, compiled obituaries for living figures—a gig he later exploited in his first solo at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery. There, in a show none-too-subtly titled “History is a Perpetual Virgin endlessly and repeatedly Deflowered by successive generations of Fucking Liars,” McEwen exhibited “obits” of Bill Clinton, Nicole Kidman, and Jeff Koons, offering a funny, morbid take on celebrity obsession. “Nicole Kidman is the only convincing Hollywood star today, but she’s clearly a freak. When you see her interviewed, it’s like she’s not even in control of her personality,” he says. At the Biennial, McEwen will show several obituaries, plus a large abstract Rorschach painting made with chewing gum; look for him again in mid-March at Bortolami Dayan, when the buzzed-about group show “Survivor” opens.