Frankenstorm

George Condo is an artist whose work is deeply engaged with the traditions of European and American painting. From his early days in the avant-garde East Village art scene in the 1980s, he has been widely recognized as the missing link that connects the figurative tradition begun by Rembrandt, Picasso and Bacon to his contemporaries, John Currin, Glenn Brown, Dana Schutz and others. (H. Cotter, "A Mind Where Picasso Meets Looney Tunes," New York Times, January 27 2011). In canvases that articulate the dichotomy of abstraction and figuration, Condo takes a leap by pushing beyond the theosophical rigidity of human portraiture, daring to introduced comedy and macabre that consummate an altogether new and invigorating hybrid. As the artist stated in his 2011 interview with Laura Hoptman, "Representational pictures are the artist's mind, abstractions are pictures of the artist's mind." In Frankenstorm, the main point is not just referencing the tradition, but Condo's own pictorial innovation, into which he masterfully integrates the past and the present, all the while creating a unique compelling presence. Standing proudly to attention, Frankenstorm is a daunting opus and a stunning portrait that displays the delicate balance of realism and abstraction. Forged from the fragments of art historical tenet, Frankenstorm alludes to Picasso's Head of a Woman and contemporary American culture by superimposing the geometric facial features with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and a bulging single eye. Further to the juxtaposition of European Cubism and American pop icon is the dark, brooding, monochromatic backdrop and classic figure proportion attributing to Rembrandt's Self Portrait. It is in this respect the present canvas most closely resembles the Dutch master's genius for outlining the psychological presence of his subjects using only the pure layer of dark paint. Yet, Condo chooses to manifest the reference on an oversized canvas, fusing the seventeenth century Dutch iconographic tradition with a renewed sense of scale. Another salient element found in Frankenstorm is Condo's use of blue and maroon striped marks, which is painstakingly reminiscent of Bacon's cage-framed contours in his emotionally charged portrait, Study after Velzquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. Like Bacon, Condo lives life on the brink, he embraces risk, and he produces works that are strangely beautiful and grotesque at the same time. Painted during the height of Hurricane Sandy, without access to electricity and the outside world, Condo's Frankenstorm embodies the spirit of brashness and bravura, as humanity faced the Franken-storm of the century.

An inspiring, intensely self-critical man, George Condo's retrospective held at New Museum in 2011 was an overwhelming success. The show solidified Condo's status as the most exciting artist of his generation in both domestic and international art scenes. Garnering an audience of celebrities and fellow contemporary artists, Condo's works have captured significant attention among high-profile personalities such as menswear designer Adam Kimmel and rapper Kanye West. In addition to the seminal retrospective at New York's New Museum, Condo's work is included in many important museum collections, most prominently, Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.