George Condo
George Condo
b. 1957
The American painter, sculptor, printmaker and draughtsman George Condo innovatively approaches portraiture with his macabre and carnivalesque images of imaginary characters, rendered in his signature ‘artificial realism’ style. Drawing from the Old Masters and influential artists of the past to practice what he calls ‘psychological Cubism’, Condo’s works collage into single images the various extremes of the human psyche. The result are his noticeably abject characters
identified by intense features. Condo’s characters are grotesque yet comical, rendered in traditional yet noticeably modern figurations, effectively forming an oeuvre that continues to inspire art lovers, artists and collectors alike.
The American painter, sculptor, printmaker and draughtsman George Condo innovatively approaches portraiture with his macabre and carnivalesque images of imaginary characters. Drawing from the Old Masters and influential artists of the past to practice what he calls ‘psychological Cubism’, Condo collages into single images the various extremes of the human psyche.
Born in 1957 in Concord, New Hampshire, Condo claims that he began creating art at age three. With an early artistic talent and love for music, he went on to study art history and music theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell where he learned about the Baroque and Rococo, influences which remained relevant in his later production. In 1978 he moved to Boston to attend the Massachusetts College of Art and joined the punk band ‘The Girls’ before moving to New York where he briefly worked as a printer for Warhol.
In 1982, Condo moved to Los Angeles where he began acting on his love for the Old Masters. Observing the new rise in figurative painting in New York, Condo wanted to return with a statement of his own that would stand up against the likes of Warhol’s soup cans. The first work he made as a result was ‘The Madonna’, a breakthrough painting which he described as ‘a fake Tiepolo’. Based on his memories of the subject, Condo assembled this image with varying layers of paint which he scraped away, consequently giving it the effect of an Old Masters painting with a modern twist.
Condo travelled to Spain in 1983 where he produced his ‘Name Paintings’, Old Masters‐like paintings emblazoned with his last name which would launch his reputation. From 1985 to 1995 he lived in Paris as he attempted to carve out his own visual language away from the noise of New York. His experiments in Paris included painting ‘into Picasso’, his term for his attempt to understand Picasso’s language from within.
Condo’s work is defined by imaginative characters taken from memory, including priests, clowns, waiters, nudes and debutantes, as well as the rare appearances of familiar faces like Jesus and Batman. Depicted in his signature ‘artificial realism’ style defined as ‘the realistic representation of that which is artificial’, Condo’s portraits are indeed not portraits at all but images of imaginary people.
From early on Condo took from the visual language of the Old Masters and other influential painters like Picasso, Velázquez, Matisse, and Twombly, among many others. ‘The only way for me to feel the difference between every other artist and me is to use every artist to become me’, stated Condo in a line of thinking that perhaps influenced his practice of ‘psychological Cubism’. Unlike Picasso, Condo renders different, often conflicting, emotions within the same figuration. In doing so, his characters are noticeably abject as they are identified by extreme features such as bulging eyes, bulbous cheeks, multitudinous limbs and disturbing bites.
Condo lives and works in New York where he continues to innovate in his production of grotesque yet comical, traditional yet noticeably modern figurations. His distinct style has continued to inspire art lovers, collectors and artists alike as Laura Hoptman, Executive Director of the Drawing Center in New York, stated, ‘George opened the door for artists to use the history of painting in a way that was not appropriation’.
GHOSTS OF CHANCE
George Condo
In 1991, George Condo’s illustrations for the American Beat writer William Burrough’s new novella ‘Ghosts of Chance’ was published by the Whitney Museum. Condo first met Burroughs in Paris through Brion Gysin, Burrough’s long-time collaborator who Condo was introduced to by Keith Haring, another artist who worked with the writing duo. Condo and Burroughs proved to be a natural connection, and from 1988 to 1998 the two collaborated on paintings and sculptures together.
Set in Madagascar, Burrough’s gripping tale of so called ‘environmental devastation’ and obsession is marked by his characteristic concerns with lemurs, drugs and paranoia. Such is visually narrated by Condo’s fantastical illustrations of scenes like an unnaturally coloured, lush landscape and a disturbing Tudor era-like portrait. Also included in ‘Ghosts of Chance’ are three soft ground etchings, depicting scenes in black and white. Maintaining a strong sense of line appropriated with a cartoonish quality, Condo’s forms narrate at times whimsical and at other times tormented scenes.
These etchings were produced whilst Condo was living in Paris, a time when he was experimenting with finding his own visual language through practices like ‘painting into Picasso’. An admirer of the Old Masters and great artists of the past, these influences are present in his ‘Ghost of Chance’ etchings, such as the third print from the series in which two large faces, the tongue of one moving into the mouth of the other, float above piles of objects like vases and balls. An undeniably Surrealist image, this work is exemplary of the wide range of sources Condo was looking to and would continue to look to in the employment of his awe-inspiring visual language.
SCULPTURE
George Condo
George Condo is acclaimed for his imaginative visual language that transcends history, fusing into single images the work of Old Masters with new ones as he constructs expressive characters from memory. His incredible respect for art history and admiration for past practices used is perhaps no more present than in his sculpted busts.
Like he paints, draws or prints, Condo sculpts with exaggerated emotion. Working in the medium of bronze allows him to interact with the incredibly tactile material of clay to produce the moulds. Such is present in the exceptionally rough textures of a number of his sculptures, including ‘The Walrus’ (2006). The surface is anything but smooth, the bronze material seemingly layered like strokes of impasto paint. In manipulating the clay in such a way, Condo is able to infuse the form with his characteristic wide-ranging emotion. It also lends itself to an engaging form of Surrealist abstraction as this strange form with two sets of faces and an apparent third form climbing up its neck appears to be simultaneously emerging from this amorphous abstraction while also fading back into it.
Other sculptures by Condo are less aggressive and rough, including works like ‘Tristessa’ (2002) and ‘Phoenician Boy’ (2002), which manage to be at once both classical and modern. The forms here are undeniably heads which stare directly at the viewer. The emotion in ‘Tristessa’ is subtle, her face simultaneously intense and calm, while ‘Phoenician Boy’ is slightly more caricatured, his mouth rendered in a definitive frown. This modern appearance of emotion in this classical context is complimented by the patinated bronze material itself which brings the forms further into contemporary times.
COMPRESSIONS
George Condo
George Condo, ever the challenger of art world delineations, unveiled in 2011 at Skarstedt Gallery a series of works begun in 2009 which eliminates the distinctions between painting and drawing. The works in the exhibition titled ‘Drawing Paintings’ explores the relationship between the two mediums by combining the improvisational aspects of drawing with the controlled methods of painting into a single image. The practices in these 11 works are further explored in his subseries of ‘Compressions’, inventive compositions in which the content is compressed into a single corner of the picture plane. On the occasion of the Skarstedt exhibition the ‘Compression’ works were converted into a portfolio of lithographs.
Set against patchy grey backgrounds, Condo’s ‘Compressions’ fuse together Cubist-like sharp and strong lines with flat and defined patches of colour recollective of Cézanne. Emerging from these lines and coloured passages are his famous characters, including Rodrigo, the ‘disapproving butler’ who appears across Condo’s work. Other exaggerated, contorted and cartoon-like faces and nude forms are identifiable across the composition. However, they are seemingly disembodied, their remaining forms lost within the sea of compression and further abstracting the surreal composition.
In directing the composition into a single corner, Condo lays bare the remainder of the pictorial space, as if a reminder of how far this compressed form could be stretched to when allowed. In this sense, Condo’s ‘Compressions’ are masterful works which keenly manipulate his visual language to challenge to not only medium but also issues of space and depth.
MORE SKETCHES OF SPAIN FOR MILES DAVIS
George Condo
In 1991, whilst living in Paris, George Condo produced his ‘More Sketches of Spain for Miles Davis’ series of etchings and aquatints. These prints, defined by the artist’s economical use of line, merge his profound love for the Spanish masters with that for Miles Davis into this diverse yet nonetheless cohesive series.
Condo has long been influenced by music, being himself a musician, and has brought this influence into his own work. He has cited Davis as a great inspiration, even having produced in 1986 the painting ‘Dancing to Miles’, which visually envisions the awe-inspiring complexity of Davis’ jazz through Cubism. In ‘More Sketches of Spain for Miles Davis’ Condo takes this one step further. With Davis having produced a jazz album titled ‘Sketches of Spain’ (1960), the artist appropriates the influence that Spain had on the musician for himself.
Produced during a time when Condo was looking to great artists of the past to help him mould his own visual language, he was particularly looking at Picasso. He was practicing a method he referred to as ‘painting into Picasso’ in which he attempted to understand the artist by working like him. It is therefore unsurprising to see in ‘More Sketches of Spain for Miles Davis’ references to Picasso in the curvaceous, often unbalanced yet at times classical forms of Condo’s women who recall series by the master such as ‘Series 347’ (1968).
However, Condo’s series also abounds with references to other Spanish artists that influenced him like Dalí and Velázquez, the latter of whom is referenced in ‘Untitled #1’ in which a woman holds a figurine reminiscent of Velázquez’s monumental painting ‘Las Meninas’ (1656). Through these subtle nods to the Spaniards who came before him, Condo places himself within their lineage as he adopts their trademarks to formulate his own iconic pictorial logic.
