Existing comment:
"Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one time. I do the same with psychological states."
-- George Condo
George Condo (American, b. 1957) is an extraordinarily prolific painter and sculptor. He is best known for his existential humor and unhinged pictorial inventions that synthesize disparate stylistic elements from 17th-century Venetian and Dutch painting through 20th-century Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. When Condo emerged as a painter on the New York art scene in the 1980s, he was instrumental in the revival of figuration in American art, along with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Over the decades, Condo's work has consistently surprised and engaged viewers with grotesque yet classical compositions that straddle abstraction and representation, deconstructing and reassembling archetypes found throughout our cultural map-a practice he called "Artificial Realism" and later "Psychological Cubism."
Organized in close collaboration with the artist, The Way I Think features more than 200 works on paper, many of them never exhibited before, which turn the artist's practice of conveying the inner emotions and mental states of his imaginary subjects onto himself. It allows for unprecedented insight into the mind of this highly creative artist over nearly 60 years. Interspersed with finished, large- and medium-scale works, are sketches on hotel stationary, small scraps scrawled on various papers, stacks of unopened sketch books, and even some childhood drawings. The exhibition includes a selection of the artist's "Drawing Paintings," an ongoing series begun in 2009 in which Condo challenges the primacy of painting over drawing and explores the reciprocal relationship between the two media that has been an essential part of his artistic practice.
The exhibition is organized by The Phillips Collection. With support from the Paula Ballo Dailey Memorial Fund. |