George Condo - The Artificial Realist

In the comfort of his bedroom, New Hampshire-born artist George Condo contemplated his place and personal perspective on art criticism and history.

- By Charles Moore. Portrait by Andrea Rossetti

Typing away on his laptop, he expressed how tired he had grown of critics comparing his work to Picasso’s, underscoring that he hoped to deconstruct misconceptions about his paintings by writing about the process himself. Condo wants viewers to know that he has his own viewpoint on art history. The artist posits that art bears no chronology; something created 30,000 years ago in a cave might look contemporary, while a modern artist could easily reconstruct a Renaissance painting. There is no linearity to art, Condo explains.

As a painter, Condo sheds light on the minds of imaginary characters, downloading their subconscious via the imagination and crafting subjects in the manner of a novelist or playwright. Calling his humanoid figures “abstractions of characters,” the artist depicts imaginary beings who reflect the sociological pressures and internal selves of fictionalized people. It is important to note that, though his compositions present as human-like portraits, Condo’s subjects do not actually resemble traditional mortal beings. Rather, his individuals are mired in either absolute nervous breakdowns, moments of pure joy, or perhaps a combination of the two, emotional states entirely fractured, yet pulled together by nightfall.