George Condo
Wild Color Bombardment At Hauser & Wirth
George Condo is one of the biggest names in American painting, and Hauser & Wirth is hosting a large exhibition dedicated to him in its London location. From 13 October to 23 December 2021, the gallery will be exhibiting new drawings and paintings in a show titled George Condo: Ideals of the Unfound Truth.
The works featured depict “states of mind captured in an abstract web that reveal the humanity inherent within fragmented psyches.” The emotions that these portraits so brilliantly manage to portray reveal the humanity within ourselves and all the different emotions occurring inside each one of us. As he puts it, he creates “composites of various psychological states painted in different ways,” sometimes bringing together different historical moments in one place. The Wild Color Bombardment exhibition at Hauser & Wirth portrays various emotions occurring at the same time using brilliant landscape painting qualities (his gestural paint strokes are similar to what we might see in nature.) There is also a show that opened on September 25th 2021 at the Long Museum in Shanghai, which is the largest solo exhibition by George Condo in Asia to date. It features over 150 of his works.
Condo was born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1957. He currently lives and works in New York City, and prior to the first time he moved there (to work as a printer for Andy Warhol) he studied Art History and Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell (during this time he became particularly inspired by a course on Baroque and Rococo painting.) He has spent a large portion of his life living between Europe and New York, and during his time in Paris (1985-1995) he came up with his well-known ‘artificial realism’ and made his first attempt at sculpture.
His style has evolved and changed immensely throughout his career, although drawing and music have always remained a focal point (he is known for comparing his practice to music, such as jazz music), and the work exhibited in this show reflects that process more than ever. Condo has stated. “I like to make it complicated for myself in terms of colors and tonality … it makes it more interesting to find my way through it all, to give it a shape, a form, a balance.” In a way, one could say Condo thrives in chaos: “The chaos that is present in the world is a driving force for creation and he sees his works as ‘harmonic resolutions’ to radical divisive elements in society. The process of making art is a way for Condo to resolve these tensions, a form of personal conflict resolution via painting and drawing.”
George Condo: Ideals of the Unfound Truth is taking place across the entirety of both Hauser & Wirth’s London spaces. His other major retrospective at the Long Museum in Shanghai, titled The Picture Gallery, is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, and features paintings made throughout the artist’s career. It has also debuted a new series of large-scale canvases made specifically for this event.
