"I believe that painting needs to transform in order for it to become interesting for each and every generation, but I think of it more in terms of being liberated by history. Liberated by what has come before."
A cacophony of art historical references run riot across George Condo’s Seated Female Figure. From the softly lit figures of Rembrandt van Rijn’s self portraits, to the dramatic and illuminating chiaroscuro of Peter Paul Ruben’s biblical scenes, to the curvilinear forms of Jean-August-Dominque Ingres’ infamous Odalisques, to Pablo Picasso’s serene and important portraits of his lover Marie-Thérèse, and Francis Bacon’s twentieth century distortions of the human body, Condo elegantly weaves together an array of visual quotations from the great masters of art history. This frenetic patchwork of visual quotation extends beyond the art historical cannon absorbing and manipulating the iconography of popular culture, such as cartoons and comic strips. Through this highly textured synthesis of visual reference, Condo pushes existing boundaries and defies expectations for figurative painting, masterfully reimagining one of the most important subjects in art history: the female nude.
Musee Picasso, Paris
Image: © Bridgeman Images
Artwork: © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2020
Undoubtably, portraiture sits at the very apex of Condo’s practice, offering the perfect vehicle for the artist’s extensive exploration of the furthest extremes of the human psyche. This bright, curvaceous figure is fashioned in a relaxed, reclining pose, that welcomes the viewer into an alluring, spot lit realm; yet as we inch closer we are met with the figure’s gnashing teeth, bulging eyes and puckered ears, rendered across three disjointed heads, each face as gloriously monstrous as the other. The figure’s angular and elongated limbs, with legs clad in fishnet stockings and fingers adorned with crimson red nail polish, twist around one another, continuously revealing and concealing a seemingly never ending number of extremities unfurling across the composition. At the heart of Seated Female Figure, is an unnervingly comic quality in this striking dichotomy of allure and repulsion, enhanced only by the arresting stare of the subject’s multiple sets of eyes. Sitting proudly in her fishnets, Condo’s protagonist is at once repulsive and seductive, sinister and vulnerable, deformed but likeable. Hayward Gallery curator Ralph Rugoff perfectly surmises this psychological resonance: “Unlike in caricature… the preposterous features of these figures are in fact rendered with great sympathy. Drawing on the traditional rhetoric of portraiture, Condo imbues his invented subjects with a compelling psychological presence” (Ralph Rugoff, ‘The Mental States of America,’ in: Exh. Cat., London, Hayward Gallery, George Condo: Mental States, 2011-12, p. 16).
Image: © Mike McGregor/Contour by Getty Images
Seated Female Figure is a particularly arresting example of Condo’s ‘psychological cubism’; effortlessly teetering between the highly seductive and the ghoulishly nightmarish. In the artist’s words:
“Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states. Four of them can occur simultaneously. Like glimpsing a bus with one passenger howling over a joke they're hearing down the phone, someone else asleep, someone else crying – I'll put them all in one face’
The artist skillfully delivers a schizophrenic marriage of horror, pathos and humour to expose the intense psychic states of both the viewer and the sitter. Condo’s rich pictorial creations, of which Seated Female Figure is a superb example, have made him one of the most inventive and popular artists of his generation.