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拍品专文
“The idea is to take all the information from every painting I like in history and put it back in an original way.” – George Condo
“I describe what I do as psychological cubism. Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states.” – George Condo
George Condo’s Tan Orgy Improvisation is a richly vibrant and passionately-charged example of his career-long investigation of Cubism and its formal possibilities in the contemporary moment. One of the leading painters of his generation, Condo’s postmodern approach to form, color, composition and art history has placed him at painting’s vanguard since his emergence over four decades ago. The present example is both a meditation on Condo’s illustrious predecessors and, importantly, a stellar demonstration of his uniquely disconcerting techniques, exploration of the human psyche and interpersonal relationships. A captivating large-scale composition in acrylic, oilstick and pastel on paper, Tan Orgy Improvisation shines as an embodiment of Condo’s knife-edge dance between the enticing and the grotesque, aptly sanctifying his prowess as both a master painter and draftsman.
Melding elements of beauty and the macabre into a vision both enticing and disarming all at once, Condo’s Tan Orgy Improvisation appears to immortalize at least ten figures–some female and conventionally beautiful, while some male and rather unseemly–within the work’s complexly-geometric picture plane. Pops of luscious color illuminate key body parts and a varied array of facial expressions, all through a diversity of media. At once painterly in its gestural approach, the present large-scale work on paper also combines its applied paint with oilstick and pastel, lending clean and clear definitions to the figures’ extremities. Bold outlines emphasize exaggerated emotions in this sensual scene, where each figure seems to pause from a cacophony of passion and face the viewer dead-on, at least for a moment. As curator and historian Simon Baker has noted, “The idea of uniting drawing and painting on a single canvas arose from Condo’s recognition of the need for immediacy and improvisation with line and gesture but can also be understood as contingent upon the increasing importance of the contrapuntal balance of working at different speeds and rhythms on the same work” (S. Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, London, 2015, p. 152). By collapsing these discrete planes together, Condo creates a site of ambiguity and discord, asking the viewer to tease out potential connections. The artist brilliantly fuses two disciplines into a single work here, overthrowing the hierarchies of traditional practice. These embellishments imitate the play of light on material bodies–the figures appear to take leave of the picture plane, looming before the viewer in an invented three-dimensional space.
As Ralph Rugoff, director of London's Hayward Gallery, has stated, “These figures can be seductive and repulsive at the same time. They embody a position that is simultaneously frightening and appealing. This is something that also comes across in the way they solicit different kinds of looks from the viewer, and how they often look back at us with eyes that don’t match or don’t even seem to belong to the same face” (R. Rugoff, George Condo: Existential Portraits, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 2006, pp. 8-9). In Tan Orgy Improvisation, Condo takes this interest in the composite and the hybrid to intellectually-intricate and aesthetically-virtuosic heights. Enthralled with paint and its drawn media, Condo creates a varied surface on which his intimate scene plays out. Describing the destabilizing and often challenging nature of his paintings, Condo has introduced a new term: “It’s what I call artificial realism. That’s what I do. I try to depict a character’s train of thoughts simultaneously—hysteria, joy, sadness, desperation. If you could see these things at once that would be like what I’m trying to make you see in my art” (G. Condo, quoted in S. Jeffries “George Condo: ‘I Was Delirious. Nearly Died’,” The Guardian, 10 February 2014).
“I describe what I do as psychological cubism. Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states.” – George Condo
George Condo’s Tan Orgy Improvisation is a richly vibrant and passionately-charged example of his career-long investigation of Cubism and its formal possibilities in the contemporary moment. One of the leading painters of his generation, Condo’s postmodern approach to form, color, composition and art history has placed him at painting’s vanguard since his emergence over four decades ago. The present example is both a meditation on Condo’s illustrious predecessors and, importantly, a stellar demonstration of his uniquely disconcerting techniques, exploration of the human psyche and interpersonal relationships. A captivating large-scale composition in acrylic, oilstick and pastel on paper, Tan Orgy Improvisation shines as an embodiment of Condo’s knife-edge dance between the enticing and the grotesque, aptly sanctifying his prowess as both a master painter and draftsman.
Melding elements of beauty and the macabre into a vision both enticing and disarming all at once, Condo’s Tan Orgy Improvisation appears to immortalize at least ten figures–some female and conventionally beautiful, while some male and rather unseemly–within the work’s complexly-geometric picture plane. Pops of luscious color illuminate key body parts and a varied array of facial expressions, all through a diversity of media. At once painterly in its gestural approach, the present large-scale work on paper also combines its applied paint with oilstick and pastel, lending clean and clear definitions to the figures’ extremities. Bold outlines emphasize exaggerated emotions in this sensual scene, where each figure seems to pause from a cacophony of passion and face the viewer dead-on, at least for a moment. As curator and historian Simon Baker has noted, “The idea of uniting drawing and painting on a single canvas arose from Condo’s recognition of the need for immediacy and improvisation with line and gesture but can also be understood as contingent upon the increasing importance of the contrapuntal balance of working at different speeds and rhythms on the same work” (S. Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, London, 2015, p. 152). By collapsing these discrete planes together, Condo creates a site of ambiguity and discord, asking the viewer to tease out potential connections. The artist brilliantly fuses two disciplines into a single work here, overthrowing the hierarchies of traditional practice. These embellishments imitate the play of light on material bodies–the figures appear to take leave of the picture plane, looming before the viewer in an invented three-dimensional space.
As Ralph Rugoff, director of London's Hayward Gallery, has stated, “These figures can be seductive and repulsive at the same time. They embody a position that is simultaneously frightening and appealing. This is something that also comes across in the way they solicit different kinds of looks from the viewer, and how they often look back at us with eyes that don’t match or don’t even seem to belong to the same face” (R. Rugoff, George Condo: Existential Portraits, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 2006, pp. 8-9). In Tan Orgy Improvisation, Condo takes this interest in the composite and the hybrid to intellectually-intricate and aesthetically-virtuosic heights. Enthralled with paint and its drawn media, Condo creates a varied surface on which his intimate scene plays out. Describing the destabilizing and often challenging nature of his paintings, Condo has introduced a new term: “It’s what I call artificial realism. That’s what I do. I try to depict a character’s train of thoughts simultaneously—hysteria, joy, sadness, desperation. If you could see these things at once that would be like what I’m trying to make you see in my art” (G. Condo, quoted in S. Jeffries “George Condo: ‘I Was Delirious. Nearly Died’,” The Guardian, 10 February 2014).