George Condo
18 Oct 2011 - 08 Jan 2012
© George Condo
Red Antipodular Portrait, 1996 Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 121.9cm, ©the artist,Image courtesy the artist
Red Antipodular Portrait, 1996 Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 121.9cm, ©the artist,Image courtesy the artist
GEORGE CONDO
Mental States
18 October, 2011 – 8 January, 2012
This is the first major retrospective of the American artist George Condo. Since his emergence in New York’s East Village in the early 1980s, George Condo has developed a provocative body of work that, for all its outlandish humour and outrageousness, is deeply engaged with the memory of European and American traditions of painting. Focusing on his ‘imaginary portraits’, which conjure varied mental states with a mixture of comic absurdity and the heart-rending pathos, and incorporating sculpture as well painting, the exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of three decades of his art.
American artist George Condo is one of the most original and provocative painters of his generation. Deeply engaged with the memory of European and American traditions of painting as well as 20th-century comics and cartoons, Condo’s art filters the past through the outlandish humour and imagination of a decidedly contemporary sensibility. This exhibition, his first major retrospective, focuses on the artist’s ‘imaginary portraits’. Featuring an invented cast of tragicomic characters, these paintings and sculptures arouse our horror, fascination and delight. Condo’s figures can also solicit our empathy as we come to sense that their extreme mental states echo familiar aspects of our own natures and our own times.
Displayed in the upper galleries of the Hayward Gallery, George Condo: Mental States is organised thematically and stylistically in ‘chapters’ developed in close collaboration with the artist. The exhibition features some 80 works and is divided into three main sections: Portraiture, Mania and Melancholia and Abstract-Figuration.
George Condo: Mental States is organised by the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre and curated by Hayward Gallery Director, Ralph Rugoff. The exhibition was shown previously at the New Museum, New York (26 January – 8 May), and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (25 June- 25 September). After the Hayward Gallery it will travel to Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (23 February – 28 May 2012).
Mental States
18 October, 2011 – 8 January, 2012
This is the first major retrospective of the American artist George Condo. Since his emergence in New York’s East Village in the early 1980s, George Condo has developed a provocative body of work that, for all its outlandish humour and outrageousness, is deeply engaged with the memory of European and American traditions of painting. Focusing on his ‘imaginary portraits’, which conjure varied mental states with a mixture of comic absurdity and the heart-rending pathos, and incorporating sculpture as well painting, the exhibition offers a comprehensive survey of three decades of his art.
American artist George Condo is one of the most original and provocative painters of his generation. Deeply engaged with the memory of European and American traditions of painting as well as 20th-century comics and cartoons, Condo’s art filters the past through the outlandish humour and imagination of a decidedly contemporary sensibility. This exhibition, his first major retrospective, focuses on the artist’s ‘imaginary portraits’. Featuring an invented cast of tragicomic characters, these paintings and sculptures arouse our horror, fascination and delight. Condo’s figures can also solicit our empathy as we come to sense that their extreme mental states echo familiar aspects of our own natures and our own times.
Displayed in the upper galleries of the Hayward Gallery, George Condo: Mental States is organised thematically and stylistically in ‘chapters’ developed in close collaboration with the artist. The exhibition features some 80 works and is divided into three main sections: Portraiture, Mania and Melancholia and Abstract-Figuration.
George Condo: Mental States is organised by the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre and curated by Hayward Gallery Director, Ralph Rugoff. The exhibition was shown previously at the New Museum, New York (26 January – 8 May), and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (25 June- 25 September). After the Hayward Gallery it will travel to Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (23 February – 28 May 2012).