Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, George Condo-The lost Civilization, April 17 -August 17, 2009
Literature
O. Lorquin, George Condo: la civilisation perdue = the lost civilization, Paris: Musée Maillol-Fondation Dina Vierny, 2009
Catalogue Essay
“In the paintings, these characters expand beyond those boundaries...Faced with despair, they decide to live way out there beyond the periphery of consciousness.” GEORGE CONDO
George Condo’s work is tantamount to a loud sneer, expressed in the inventive grotesqueness of his stylized characters and through the crass nature of his mise-en-scene. In the present lot, The Monk at the Brothel, 2007, we find both these wonderfully disturbing qualities and other boundaries being crossed in a frenzy of psycho-sexual drama. Coalesced somewhere between a dirty joke and an episode of Twin Peaks, The Monk at the Brothel, 2007, is brought to life through an intriguing combination of acrylic and charcoal, revealing a stark and utterly blunt portrayal of a group engaged in a sexual act.
Condo’s characters appear in distinct nineteenth century fashion and décor, reveling in the sensual energy of nightlife made famous by Édouard Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. Condo incorporates the viewer into his voyeuristic scene, peaking through the door we find a man of the cloth who has a plentitude of skeletons in his closet. Condo’s is an intentional psychological gesture based on his own highly imaginative concepts. In the present lot, we discover the contorted faces that live within the souls of their bearers.
Picasso once said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." Indeed, American artist George Condo frequently cites Picasso as an explicit source in his contemporary cubist compositions and joyous use of paint. Condo is known for neo-Modernist compositions staked in wit and the grotesque, which draw the eye into a highly imaginary world.
Condo came up in the New York art world at a time when art favored brazen innuendo and shock. Student to Warhol, best friend to Basquiat and collaborator with William S. Burroughs, Condo tracked a different path. He was drawn to the endless inquiries posed by the aesthetics and formal considerations of Caravaggio, Rembrandt and the Old Masters.