George Condo

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. Condo’s paintings employ what could be termed ‘psychological foreshortening,’ or painting from the inside out, rooted in memory—not only that of the artist, but the character’s own image of himself. Paintings of individuals are complemented by a new exploration into the group portrait, building on 18th century compositional techniques in order to scrutinize today’s dissimulations. Psychological dramas play out in the face of individual characters, in the positions of subjects in space and in the gaze between canvases. The artist’s knowledge of diverse...