ART CITIES:Los Angeles -George Condo
George Condo’s practice is rooted in the representation of the self or, as he puts it, one’s “many selves”, referencing the art, philosophy, and literature of the past. Condo documents the absurdities of contemporary daily life: the banker, the priest, our own 20th & 21st Century middle class and clergy. In his very personal and singular iconic manner Condo ignites in our mind entire stories about each of his protagonists.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive
George Condo presents new paintings in his solo exhibition “What’s The Point?” at Sprüth Magers Gallery, Los Angeles. Condo creates works that dramatically bridge an array of painterly approaches, moods, and influences from diverse fields such as art history, music, philosophy, and popular culture. The artist’s compositions often begin with the human figure, rendered variously in fluid networks of black lines and interlacing planes of bold color that move seamlessly between controlled precision and unabashed exuberance. His canvases tap into the extremes of human emotion and, at a moment of crisis in American and global politics, a sense of mania and disorder that nonetheless holds out hope for progress and resolution. The paintings in “What’s the Point?” demonstrate the breadth of Condo’s artistic references, for example, from 17th Century portraiture of beggars and thieves found in the work of Dutch and Italian masters, to his own compendium of painterly gestures, which together form a trenchant picture of contemporary human consciousness. George Condo uses various historical styles and painting modes in his work, unapologetically alluding to painters such as Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and Willem de Kooning. Condo asserts that all of these approaches to painting now exist at the same time, and that ultimately painting is defined not by its ability to invent, but by its ability to reconfigure and retool styles for new audiences in interesting ways. Condo’s technique is different from collage in that it retains the space and fused surface of painting. Rather than assembling images from numerous sources or printing methods, Condo paints the varied subjects. Condo’s approach becomes a metaphor for contemporary life and the often overwhelming flow of influence and circumstances that shapes a modern person. His world is fragmented and fractured, full of unlikely juxtapositions and strange figures. An early Condo work, “Dancing to Miles” (1985–86), for instance, recalls the analytic spaces of early cubism as well as the slow unraveling of this conceptual world through paintings of de Kooning. The ultimate lesson of the work, however, is frenzied existence, fraught with turbulence and decay. Miles Davis, referred to in the title, practiced a free-form jazz that spiraled in and out of structure with a complexity all its own—so to dance to Davis is a symbol for difficulty. Like the abstract expressionists, Condo finds metaphoric footing in jazz, but he also finds a complexity hard to conceive of in the 1950s, cubism mixed with pop art and conceptual critique, much more Davis than Benny Goodman. “Central Park” (2009), uses many Condo motifs and visual construction, full-teethed faces aimed at the viewer, deconstructed perspective, and patchwork and twisted forms, but this is a very complicated and layered effort, quite new to the artist’s practice. Condo is known for image making, and although he employs many styles, he usually maintains the image in the work. In Central Park, however, the image is questioned, moving between figuration and the scratchy, defacement of a painter such as Cy Twombly. The depicted wall (a visual stand in for the canvas) serves as both the generating force of the image and the source of its collapse.
Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, 5900 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, Duration: 9/4-1/6/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, http://spruethmagers.com
