The paintings, drawings and sculptural work of George Condo (*1957) offer a virtuosic examination of a wide range of art-historical idioms, which he transforms into his own visual language. He depicts grotesque, tragicomic and sometimes monstrous subjects with stylistic elements from seventeenth-century Venetian or Dutch painting, but also Cubism, Surrealism and Pop Art. The New York-based artist has been associated with the gallery for over three decades, having mounted one of the first solo exhibitions of his career at Galerie Monika Sprüth in 1984.
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For all their copious references, Condo’s paintings are not quotations, pastiches or appropriations. They are products of a painterly project that mines the history of art while simultaneously challenging the justification for contemporary painting. The historically coded, painterly idioms he uses extend from the religious light of the Baroque to the iridescent tones of Florentine cangiante, to techniques he finds in Dürer, Rembrandt or Caravaggio. There is also the vocabulary of modernism and abstraction—echoes of de Kooning’s lines, Matisse’s colors and, of course, Picasso. Yet regardless of the formal vocabulary he uses, be it Old Masters or abstraction, Condo’s choice of subject systematically destroys familiar pictorial structures and demolishes the painting’s semantic field. His oeuvre is like a wild, technically brilliant art historical delirium that reconfigures past and present in a complex synthesis. He himself has termed this process “Artificial Realism.”
Condo’s career encompasses not only a variety of formal vocabularies, but also a variety of media, including collage, drawing, and sculpture. Time and again he has returned to the medium of drawing to not only shed new light on the territory between the abstract and the figurative, but also to disrupt preconceived notions about the difference between drawing and painting. Developing a method he calls “psychological Cubism,” he composes his figures and portraits not from the Cubist technique of different perspectives, but rather in a range of simultaneous emotional and psychological states.
One unifying aspect of Condo’s works is their shared dystopian, yet empathic take on humanity and our time. His oeuvre teems with cartoonish portraits, grotesque grimaces, absurd group sex scenes and detached, oddly animated body parts. In his dark, psychological landscapes, beauty and horror usually go hand in hand, and his damaged figures thrive on melodrama, seesawing between seduction and rejection. Bearing traits of both ecstasy and madness, they are forever on the verge of an uncontrollable frenzy. And yet they appear to meet with surprising sanguinity the desolation of their time and world.
George Condo Religious Paintings October 13–November 13, 2004 London
Condo’s new series of paintings investigate the collision of public and private values in a world where we have been led astray. Taking as his objects of scrutiny zealous newsmakers (including the clergy and business practitioners), the idea of family and our lost hope (in vegetable form), Condo finds in arranging subjects on canvas a glorification of the human figure despite all by which we are misled.
Malerei George Condo, Axel Kasseböhmer, Thomas Scheibitz, Andreas Schulze May 4–June 19, 2004 Munich
Shadow and Light Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, George Condo, Walter Dahn, Olafur Eliasson, Martin Fengel, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Dan Flavin, Sylvie Fleury, Gilbert & George, Dan Graham, Thomas Grünfeld, Andreas Gursky, Stefan Hirsig, Jenny Holzer, Axel Kasseböhmer, Stefan Kern, Karen Kilimnik, Astrid Klein, Louise Lawler, Anne Loch, Paul Morrison, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Bruce Nauman, Manuel Ocampo, Nam June Paik, Hirsch Perlman, Lari Pittman, Barbara Probst, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Frances Scholz, Andreas Schulze, Cindy Sherman, Paul Sietsema, Rosemarie Trockel, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool, Martin Wöhrl, Philip-Lorca diCorcia July 26–August 31, 2003 Salzburg
Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers will open a temporary space in Salzburg together with their London partner Simon Lee for the duration of the Salzburg Festival. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that the galleries are traditionally closed in August and that exhibition operations are shut down, but at the same time cultural life is at its peak in Salzburg, not far from our Munich location. It makes sense to contribute something to the cultural climate with a precisely formulated group exhibition and at the same time to reach a sophisticated international audience.
20th Anniversary Show John Baldessari, Alighiero Boetti, George Condo, Walter Dahn, Thomas Demand, Thea Djordjadze, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Sylvie Fleury, Andreas Gursky, Jenny Holzer, Gary Hume, Axel Kasseböhmer, Karen Kilimnik, Astrid Klein, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Nina Pohl, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Frances Scholz, Andreas Schulze, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Andrea Zittel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia April 25–October 18, 2003 Cologne
In 1983, Monika Sprüth opened her Cologne based gallery with a solo show by Andreas Schulze. Starting from the idea to establish a forum for young and unknown artists, the central focus of the gallery concept was developed in the discourse of the 80s. The gallery program was completed by recourses to artistic attitudes of the last 40 years. This research, motivated by reflection on contemporary art history, was more and more realized in cooperation with Philomene Magers who directed her Bonn gallery since 1992. After a few years of loose cooperation, Monika Sprüth Gallery and Philomene Magers Gallery aligned with each other after, and together the Monika Sprüth / Philomene Magers Gallery opened up in Munich in 1999.
Künstler der Galerie Peter Fischli David Weiss, Rosemarie Trockel, George Condo, Axel Kasseböhmer, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Anne Loch, Andreas Schulze, Thomas Wachweger, Milan Kunc, Ina Barfuss June 13–July 15, 1987 Cologne
George Condo (*1957, Concord, NH) lives in New York. Selected solo exhibitions include Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2025), DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Hydra (2024), Nouveau Musée National de Monaco – Villa Paloma (2023), The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (2023), Long Museum, Shanghai (2021), Cycladic Art Museum, Athens and Maritime Museum, Hong Kong (both 2018), Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2017, traveled to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Museum Berggruen, Berlin (2016), New Museum, New York (2010), traveled to Hayward Gallery, London (2011), Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2011), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2012) and Kunstmuseum Luzern (2008). Selected group exhibitions include Venice Biennale (2019, 2013), 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015), 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014), Whitney Biennial (2010, 1987) and the 48th Corcoran Biennial, Washington DC (2005).
Education
1976–78
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Teaching
2004
Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard
Awards, Grants and Fellowships
2018
BOMB Magazine 2018 Anniversary Gala Honoree
2013
New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture Honoree
2008
National Artist Award, Anderson Ranch Arts Center
Annual Artist’s Award from ArtsConnection
2005
Francis J. Greenberger Award
1999
Academy Award in Art, the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Public Collections
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York
Citigroup Art Advisory Service Collection, New York
Dakis Joannou Collection Foundation, Athens
Deste Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Athens
Doron Sebbag Art Collection, ORS Ltd., Tel Aviv
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Ministère de la Culture, Paris
Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain, Auvergne
Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain, Ile de France, Paris
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