Provenance
Simon Lee gallery, Switzerland
Literature
George Condo, exh. cat., Simon Lee Gallery, London, 2007, p. 22 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
'You’re seduced by the willing eye and then stared at by the aggressive one. As you move into the portrait there is something paranoiac about each part.' – George Condo (Existential Portraits: Sculpture, Drawings, Paintings 2005/2006, Holzwarth Publications, 2006, p.10)

There is more that meets the fervent eye of George Condo’s Smiling Smoker. A quintessential work from Condo’s seminal series, Mental States, the present lot is a prime reading of Condo’s own artistic manifesto in its representation of the precariousness of human existence. Condo, humoured in his portraits, reveals the simple psychosis of everyday life. Playing upon exaggerated emotion, Condo’s imagined sitters 'are questioning their existence. Faced with despair, they decide to live way out there beyond the periphery of consciousness.' (Ibid, p.7)

Working entirely from memory without the aid of photographic source material, Condo’s portraits are entirely autonomous snapshots of a moment captured within chaos. By breaking down one reality to construct another – more manic – version, Condo himself describes his process as transcribing a mental phenomenon (Ibid, p.11). Condo’s exaggerated and frenzied characters reflect the varying roles that each person plays in their daily lives, ultimately posing the question: Can anyone ever really be themselves? Set against a nondescript black background, Condo’s half-nude woman is turned away yet catches the gaze of the viewer in an isolated moment, smoke trailing from her cigarette. Recalling Edward Hopper’s pictures of the detached and melancholic views of American life, Condo, rendering his own unique composition and gaze, turns his canvases into a mirror for the spectators themselves. This study of the facades of human existence within contemporary society underpins Condo’s Artificial Realism – a term coined by the artist in the eighties to describe 'the realistic representation of that which is artificial.' (Ibid, p.8)

Thus, beneath Condo’s humourous and exuberant execution is the underlying idea of 'the self' and how human existence seeks to escape it. As Condo describes, '[the portraits] are able to reflect the emotional range of a human being. They can embody the despair, the heartache, the love and the happiness of any of us. They’re capable of all those things.' (Ibid, p. 13)
Artist Biography
George Condo
American • 1957
Picasso once said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." Indeed, American artist George Condo frequently cites Picasso as an explicit source in his contemporary cubist compositions and joyous use of paint. Condo is known for neo-Modernist compositions staked in wit and the grotesque, which draw the eye into a highly imaginary world.
Condo came up in the New York art world at a time when art favored brazen innuendo and shock. Student to Warhol, best friend to Basquiat and collaborator with William S. Burroughs, Condo tracked a different path. He was drawn to the endless inquiries posed by the aesthetics and formal considerations of Caravaggio, Rembrandt and the Old Masters.
View More Works

21

George Condo

Smiling Smoker

2006
oil on canvas
97 x 76.5 cm. (38 1/4 x 30 1/8 in.)
Signed and dated 'Condo 06' on the reverse.

Estimate
£100,000 - 150,000

Contact Specialist
Peter Sumner
Head of Contemporary Art Department
psumner@phillips.com
+44 207 318 4063

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London 27 June 2013 7pm

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Rob Pruitt
Chinese Buffet
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
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Kelley Walker
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 †
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Tauba Auerbach
Untitled (Fold) XV
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Ugo Rondinone
No. 209 DREISSIGSTERJUNIZWEITAUSENDUNDNULL
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡
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Ugo Rondinone
If There were Anywhere but Desert. Friday
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6
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #426
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Sold for £242,500
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7
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled (Bolego)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
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Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #36
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
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9
Glenn Brown
Oscillate Wildly (after ‘Autumnal Cannibalism’ 1936 by Salvador Dalí)
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £2,882,500
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10
Andy Warhol
Pontiac
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,500,000 ‡
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11
Anish Kapoor
Untitled
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12
Andy Warhol
Diamond Dust Shoes
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ‡
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13
Andy Warhol
Skull
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Three Pontificators
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15
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Three-Tiered Perspective)
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16
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
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17
Anish Kapoor
Turning the World Upside Down II
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Antony Gormley
SICK
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19
This lot is no longer available.
20
Andy Warhol
Electric Chairs
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £122,500
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21
George Condo
Smiling Smoker
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
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22
Marcel Broodthaers
Abbildung
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23
Oscar Murillo
Untitled
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24
Sterling Ruby
Alabaster SR10-7
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Sold for £110,500
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25
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
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Rashid Johnson
Cosmic Slop
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27
Marc Quinn
Separation of Body and Soul (Ultramarine)
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London 27 June 2013 7pm

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

George Condo

21

George Condo

Smiling Smoker

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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