George Condo: Paintings, Sculpture

The art of George Condo (b. Concord, New Hampshire, 1957; lives and works in New York) involves a broad variety of media such as painting, drawing, and sculpture as well as collaborative projects with other artists. Condo came to New York in the late 1970s to work as a screen printer in Andy Warhol’s factory and join the East Village arts scene. Since the 1980s, he has defined a distinctive visual language in his paintings and drawings. Based on a close study of classical painting, he has evolved a style that combines a lively sense of humor with intimations of abysmal depths. He paints figures composed of fragmentary faces and geometric shapes, with unmistakable references to Cubism and Surrealism as well as Pop Art and comic strips. Figurative painting and an unconventional approach to the classical genre of the portrait are always at the center of his work. By toying with the interplay of abstraction and figuration and blending elements from high culture and the world of everyday life, Condo defies generic hierarchies within painting. He draws inspiration from art history, Greek myth, and the traditions of the grotesque and caricature. In paintings and sculptures, Condo explores the expressive potentials of human physiognomy and reflects on themes such as economic excess, insanity, and personal vanities, which he visualizes as social frames of mind.