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Lot Essay
“In the beginning I took fragments of architecture to create a person... now I take a person and fragment them to make architecture.” – George Condo
In Blue Passages, George Condo develops a surface that resembles an abstract painting and that simultaneously portrays the artist’s eagerness to play and take from various art movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, the Renaissance and more. Re-calling Piet Mondrian’s composition process, Condo fragments space, the figure and Cubism to create his own abstract surface. The work is gestural, expressive as well as dynamic, bringing to mind the hand of Willem de Kooning and energy of Jackson Pollock’s action painting. “You look at de Kooning and ask what didn’t he do because he couldn’t do it? What de Kooning couldn’t do is look at Asheville and Woman I from the perspective of sixty years hence, and translate, multiply, and reassemble their parts and their strategies for a post-appropriation culture of cut ups, remixes, and riffs.” (G. Condo and L. Hoptman in New Museum, George Condo Mental States, 2011, p.28) This painting resembles the ordered chaos of Kandinsky’s work, where drawing and painting coexist in harmony.
Through a contemporary vision, Condo builds layers of art history, to develop a surface that is abstract and figurative at the same time. Borrowing from Pablo Picasso, Condo reverses the process of geometric abstraction, “I like to think about Picasso… because he took a bicycle seat and a pair of handlebars and made a bull’s head: he reconfigured a manmade think into a natural thing. What I’ve done is the reverse, I’ve turned it back into a bicycle” (G. Condo, in S. Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, 2015, p.47). Condo defaces the figure to transform it into a geometrical abstraction that manages to retain elements of the figure. The line work in the painting is curvilinear and creates a voluminous surface that recalls the structure of the human form: “We can still recall that face somewhere within this abstraction” (Ibid., p.109). For instance, the subtly pink flesh tone pops across the surface and acts as a reminder of the figurative source of the abstraction. Even though the figure is not physically apparent, its essence is portrayed through the gesture of the lines and hints of flesh tones.
Blue Passages is covered with black curvaceous lines that shape the light blue background, illustrating how Condo uses color as shape and creates structure with lines that recall drawing. This painting is expressive and expansive as well as dynamic. Resembling Condo’s ability to compose chaos as he has the “capacity to treat imaginary objects as if they were real, and real objects as if they were imagined”(Ibid., p.53) Old Masters like Bruegel used painting techniques to create optical illusions that portrayed an image of reality. On the other hand, Condo uses painting and drawing techniques to create a pseudo sense of reality. In Blue Passages, the structure of the surface resembles the imagery of a broken mirror, revealing the artist’s deconstruction of the image. Breaking it apart only to piece it back together, Condo plays with the work of contemporary and Old Masters and re-defines established artistic movements to create his own: “What I mean by the creation of an iconic form of painting [is something] strong enough and recognizable enough as being my own, rather than having taken from historic references” (Ibid., p.14).
Fragmenting the figure and staying true to his imagination, the prolific American artist is the leader of his own abstractions, creating a work that transcends Cubism to create its own movement. Condo calls it "Physiological Cubism" as it evolves from the Cubism established by Georges Braque and Picasso in the early 20th century to become a contemporary appropriation and transformation of the historic art movement.
In Blue Passages, the artist reconstructs the process of abstracting in order to allude to the mental states of America. The surface of this painting alludes to Wassily Kandinsky’s melodic compositions. At the same time, it retains the aggressiveness of the worked surfaces of de Kooning and the gestural action of Pollock’s drip paintings. Blue Passages portrays a psychological and physically worked canvas. It deviates almost entirely from representing any figure which makes it unique. The figure is apparent only in the curvilinear line work and hints of pink. Otherwise, it disappears completely within the abstraction, making this work special not only in his oeuvre, but also as a quintessential example of Condo’s thought and painting process.
Condo generates a mechanism of abstracting established languages and forms. He speaks his own language in art and tips over multiple art movements. In Blue Passages, he creates a light blue expansive surface, where he imposes pink shapes and black gestural marks. The painting illustrates the artist’s embrace of languages of representation, and how his medium is not material but the language of painting. Condo creates his own vocabulary and constructs works that recall masterpieces of the past through a contemporary eye. Playing with the viewer’s perception, Condo makes one question the origin of the imagery and makes it impossible to impose a preestablished definition of genre to the work. Never confined to an artistic discipline, his work is an homage and a fragmentation of art history.
In Blue Passages, George Condo develops a surface that resembles an abstract painting and that simultaneously portrays the artist’s eagerness to play and take from various art movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, the Renaissance and more. Re-calling Piet Mondrian’s composition process, Condo fragments space, the figure and Cubism to create his own abstract surface. The work is gestural, expressive as well as dynamic, bringing to mind the hand of Willem de Kooning and energy of Jackson Pollock’s action painting. “You look at de Kooning and ask what didn’t he do because he couldn’t do it? What de Kooning couldn’t do is look at Asheville and Woman I from the perspective of sixty years hence, and translate, multiply, and reassemble their parts and their strategies for a post-appropriation culture of cut ups, remixes, and riffs.” (G. Condo and L. Hoptman in New Museum, George Condo Mental States, 2011, p.28) This painting resembles the ordered chaos of Kandinsky’s work, where drawing and painting coexist in harmony.
Through a contemporary vision, Condo builds layers of art history, to develop a surface that is abstract and figurative at the same time. Borrowing from Pablo Picasso, Condo reverses the process of geometric abstraction, “I like to think about Picasso… because he took a bicycle seat and a pair of handlebars and made a bull’s head: he reconfigured a manmade think into a natural thing. What I’ve done is the reverse, I’ve turned it back into a bicycle” (G. Condo, in S. Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, 2015, p.47). Condo defaces the figure to transform it into a geometrical abstraction that manages to retain elements of the figure. The line work in the painting is curvilinear and creates a voluminous surface that recalls the structure of the human form: “We can still recall that face somewhere within this abstraction” (Ibid., p.109). For instance, the subtly pink flesh tone pops across the surface and acts as a reminder of the figurative source of the abstraction. Even though the figure is not physically apparent, its essence is portrayed through the gesture of the lines and hints of flesh tones.
Blue Passages is covered with black curvaceous lines that shape the light blue background, illustrating how Condo uses color as shape and creates structure with lines that recall drawing. This painting is expressive and expansive as well as dynamic. Resembling Condo’s ability to compose chaos as he has the “capacity to treat imaginary objects as if they were real, and real objects as if they were imagined”(Ibid., p.53) Old Masters like Bruegel used painting techniques to create optical illusions that portrayed an image of reality. On the other hand, Condo uses painting and drawing techniques to create a pseudo sense of reality. In Blue Passages, the structure of the surface resembles the imagery of a broken mirror, revealing the artist’s deconstruction of the image. Breaking it apart only to piece it back together, Condo plays with the work of contemporary and Old Masters and re-defines established artistic movements to create his own: “What I mean by the creation of an iconic form of painting [is something] strong enough and recognizable enough as being my own, rather than having taken from historic references” (Ibid., p.14).
Fragmenting the figure and staying true to his imagination, the prolific American artist is the leader of his own abstractions, creating a work that transcends Cubism to create its own movement. Condo calls it "Physiological Cubism" as it evolves from the Cubism established by Georges Braque and Picasso in the early 20th century to become a contemporary appropriation and transformation of the historic art movement.
In Blue Passages, the artist reconstructs the process of abstracting in order to allude to the mental states of America. The surface of this painting alludes to Wassily Kandinsky’s melodic compositions. At the same time, it retains the aggressiveness of the worked surfaces of de Kooning and the gestural action of Pollock’s drip paintings. Blue Passages portrays a psychological and physically worked canvas. It deviates almost entirely from representing any figure which makes it unique. The figure is apparent only in the curvilinear line work and hints of pink. Otherwise, it disappears completely within the abstraction, making this work special not only in his oeuvre, but also as a quintessential example of Condo’s thought and painting process.
Condo generates a mechanism of abstracting established languages and forms. He speaks his own language in art and tips over multiple art movements. In Blue Passages, he creates a light blue expansive surface, where he imposes pink shapes and black gestural marks. The painting illustrates the artist’s embrace of languages of representation, and how his medium is not material but the language of painting. Condo creates his own vocabulary and constructs works that recall masterpieces of the past through a contemporary eye. Playing with the viewer’s perception, Condo makes one question the origin of the imagery and makes it impossible to impose a preestablished definition of genre to the work. Never confined to an artistic discipline, his work is an homage and a fragmentation of art history.