Property of an Important European Collector George Condo Follow Writer 2006 signed and dated 'Condo 06' on the reverse oil on canvas 136.6 x 157.5 cm (53 3/4 x 62 in.) Painted in 2006.
Provenance Luhring Augustine, New York Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow Phillips, London, 10 February 2016, Lot 122 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Moscow, Gary Tatintsian Gallery, George Condo , 8 May - 8 August 2008 Catalogue Essay Situated in a non-specific yet playfully macabre landscape, George Condo’s absurd and consciously lewd Writer confronts the viewer head on. Carefully amalgamating a pantheon of stylistic references from the breadth of art history – from the renaissance to cubism – Condo turns the academic genre of portrait painting on its head, irreverently delving into modes of caricature and the grotesque. Painted in 2006, Writer can be seen as an extension of Condo’s important series known as the existential portraits. By intercepting the genre of portraiture with fictive personas and surreally deformed figures, Condo provides provocative models of the social identities we create and live by. Condo presents a world of modern professions driven by basic instincts and primal desires. Grimacing with a protruding jaw and bulbous red cheeks, Writer bears all the hallmarks of Condo’s iconic figurative vocabulary. Notably, brushwork is particularly expressive, creating a dynamic surface that vibrates with the raw aesthetic impulses of the artist; a fitting stylistic choice given that the subject parodies the idea of the over-confident, creative individual. Above all it is Condo’s ability to capture the spectrum of human emotions, psychological states and the existential plight of humanity, which has made him one of the most revered painters of his generation. Having once worked in Andy Warhol’s factory as a writer and silk screener, Condo’s journey to notoriety began in the New York art scene in the 1980s. Having befriended the most important new artists of that time, namely Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring Condo was determined to carve out his own unique aesthetic idiom. Unlike his contemporaries, instead of looking to the streets and urban life for inspiration he turned to art history. Focusing on portraiture, Condo has continually referenced Old Master painters such as Velázquez as well as 18th and 19th century Neoclassicists such as Ingres. Most importantly, however, Condo takes the greatest influence from Picasso. The partial abstraction of his figures and the distortion of particular body parts to create composite figures make concrete reference to the modern master . Indeed in the 1980s Condo began using the the terms ‘psychological cubism’ and ‘artificial realism’ to define his approach. In mid-1990s, Condo refined his now iconic treatment of the face. Bulging eyes, disk-like ears, and a clenched overbite all convey the quintessentially manic or depressive currents that underlie his works. As the artist has noted: ’I wanted to capture the characters in these paintings at the extreme height of whatever moment they’re in – in that static moment of chaos.’ (George Condo quoted in Ralph Rugoff, ‘The Enigma of Jean Louis: Interview 14 March 2006’, George Condo Existential Portraits: Sculpture, Drawings, Paintings 2005/2006 , exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 2006, p. 8). Condo’s portraits also evoke the type of allegorical portraits popularised in renaissance Northern Europe, where figures are shown to embody a particular role or virtue. Having used varied subjects, from Madonnas and clowns to cartoons and Playboy bunnies, in the present example Condo turns to the profession of the writer to create another allegory for the 21st century. Rather than using the typical portrait format, Condo opts for a landscape orientation, with the elongated naked body dissecting the horizon and dominating the frame. At a stark perpendicular, an oversized pencil cuts the picture plane vertically and acts as a crude auxiliary phallus. Typical of allegory, the writer is identified by objects which Condo has filled with duplicitous meanings: the bottle the figure clutches could be full of either i
Property of an Important European Collector George Condo Follow Writer 2006 signed and dated 'Condo 06' on the reverse oil on canvas 136.6 x 157.5 cm (53 3/4 x 62 in.) Painted in 2006.
Provenance Luhring Augustine, New York Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow Phillips, London, 10 February 2016, Lot 122 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Moscow, Gary Tatintsian Gallery, George Condo , 8 May - 8 August 2008 Catalogue Essay Situated in a non-specific yet playfully macabre landscape, George Condo’s absurd and consciously lewd Writer confronts the viewer head on. Carefully amalgamating a pantheon of stylistic references from the breadth of art history – from the renaissance to cubism – Condo turns the academic genre of portrait painting on its head, irreverently delving into modes of caricature and the grotesque. Painted in 2006, Writer can be seen as an extension of Condo’s important series known as the existential portraits. By intercepting the genre of portraiture with fictive personas and surreally deformed figures, Condo provides provocative models of the social identities we create and live by. Condo presents a world of modern professions driven by basic instincts and primal desires. Grimacing with a protruding jaw and bulbous red cheeks, Writer bears all the hallmarks of Condo’s iconic figurative vocabulary. Notably, brushwork is particularly expressive, creating a dynamic surface that vibrates with the raw aesthetic impulses of the artist; a fitting stylistic choice given that the subject parodies the idea of the over-confident, creative individual. Above all it is Condo’s ability to capture the spectrum of human emotions, psychological states and the existential plight of humanity, which has made him one of the most revered painters of his generation. Having once worked in Andy Warhol’s factory as a writer and silk screener, Condo’s journey to notoriety began in the New York art scene in the 1980s. Having befriended the most important new artists of that time, namely Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring Condo was determined to carve out his own unique aesthetic idiom. Unlike his contemporaries, instead of looking to the streets and urban life for inspiration he turned to art history. Focusing on portraiture, Condo has continually referenced Old Master painters such as Velázquez as well as 18th and 19th century Neoclassicists such as Ingres. Most importantly, however, Condo takes the greatest influence from Picasso. The partial abstraction of his figures and the distortion of particular body parts to create composite figures make concrete reference to the modern master . Indeed in the 1980s Condo began using the the terms ‘psychological cubism’ and ‘artificial realism’ to define his approach. In mid-1990s, Condo refined his now iconic treatment of the face. Bulging eyes, disk-like ears, and a clenched overbite all convey the quintessentially manic or depressive currents that underlie his works. As the artist has noted: ’I wanted to capture the characters in these paintings at the extreme height of whatever moment they’re in – in that static moment of chaos.’ (George Condo quoted in Ralph Rugoff, ‘The Enigma of Jean Louis: Interview 14 March 2006’, George Condo Existential Portraits: Sculpture, Drawings, Paintings 2005/2006 , exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 2006, p. 8). Condo’s portraits also evoke the type of allegorical portraits popularised in renaissance Northern Europe, where figures are shown to embody a particular role or virtue. Having used varied subjects, from Madonnas and clowns to cartoons and Playboy bunnies, in the present example Condo turns to the profession of the writer to create another allegory for the 21st century. Rather than using the typical portrait format, Condo opts for a landscape orientation, with the elongated naked body dissecting the horizon and dominating the frame. At a stark perpendicular, an oversized pencil cuts the picture plane vertically and acts as a crude auxiliary phallus. Typical of allegory, the writer is identified by objects which Condo has filled with duplicitous meanings: the bottle the figure clutches could be full of either i
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
