George Condo is an American painter who has helped define the global art scene for almost four decades, after beginning his career as a screenprinter in Andy Warhol’s Factory studio.
Condo’s work interprets Old Master-style paintings in contemporary, experimental ways, He takes deep inspiration from postmodern masters such as Picasso, Kandinsky and Juan Miró and describes his style as “psychological cubism.”
Condo continues to have a guiding voice in the cultural lexicon, including painting the controversial cover art for Kanye West’s 2010 “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” album.
George Condo is an American painter who has helped define the global art scene for almost four decades. Condo began his career in New York, taking up a screenprinting position in Andy Warhol’s Factory studio. Working amongst fellow creative talents William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, Condo developed a new language in the potent culture hub of the East Village. Condo is known for his compelling and unique fusion of both high and low art, and has been described as a kind of missing link between older, more comical portraiture pieces and modern figurative painting. Condo’s work has been described as everything from a hybridization of European Old Master painting and American pop art to what The New York Times called, “tasty, erudite stuff, freaky but classy, a Mixmaster version of old master, with a big glop of Pop tossed in.”
Condo takes deep inspiration from postmodern masters such as Picasso, Kandinsky and Juan Miró. He describes his style as “psychological cubism” and “artificial realism,” which is to say, a realistic representation of the unreal. This results in his subjects taking form in ways that range from disturbing to whimsical. His style has dramatically evolved over time, though he’s best known for his bizarre humanoid characters that have resulted in a global network of dedicated collectors.
While some of his subjects are taken from pop culture, most are taken from his imagination, and present an unbelievable aesthetic range. His 2002 piece “Jesus” displays a grotesque and outlandish figure, while 2013’s “Figures in Motion” leans more fantastical and beautiful. Condo continues to have a guiding voice in the cultural lexicon, including painting the controversial cover art for Kanye West’s 2010 “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” album. Recently, Condo’s “Antipodal Reunion” became the most expensive painting sold in a Sotheby’s online sale at $1.3 million.
