Beschreibung:

George Condo Large Reclining Smoker 2005 oil on canvas 65 x 60 in. (165.1 x 152.4 cm) Signed and dated “Condo 05” upper left. Also signed, titled, and dated “Condo 05 Large Reclining Smoker” on the reverse.
Provenance Xavier Hufkens, Brussels Exhibited Brussels, Xavier Hufkens, George Condo Existential Portraits, 2006 Literature G. Condo, ed., George Condo Existential Portraits, Berlin, 2006, p. 85 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Large Reclining Smoker, 2005, definitively represents George Condo’s fictional portraiture of quirky, colorful characters born of his own unique imagination. In the 1980s, as a then emerging painter, he created his signature style: Artificial Realism. Large Reclining Smoker, 2005, is one theatrical painting from the Existential Portraits series, 2005-2006. Condo’s highly pitched portraits exude bizarre sensualities; shifting visual planes and distorted figurative forms, locating Condo with a longstanding tradition of portraiture, which includes Pablo Picasso and Francis Picabia The figures betray little of their psyche, but nevertheless mesmerize us with their unorthodox suggestiveness. Large Reclining Smoker, 2005, depicts what may be a jaded and terrifying vaudevillian. Darkly comedic, the subject’s voluptuous form, positioning, and proportions are reminiscent of the eternal Venus, yet her grotesque rendering—her shrunken skull and hirsute arms—hint at the warped being behind a buxom exterior. Despite this character’s intimidating presence, there exists a tender vulnerability; a complex balance that is representative of the dichotomy of appearance and deep truth. Investigating further, the elements of Condo’s foreground speak less to a lavish bedchamber, as is the norm for the historical reclining nude, and more to the confines of a barren cell. In Large Reclining Smoker, 2005, Condo’s brilliance manifests itself in the space between beauty and horror, between reality and artifice. Read More