George Condo - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, May 13, 2010 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Luhring Augustine, New York

  • Exhibited


    New York, Skarstedt Fine Art, George Condo: New Sculptures, May 5 – June 10, 2005

  • Literature


    G. Condo, George Condo, Existential Portraits: Sculpture, Drawings, Paintings 2005/2006, Berlin, 2006, pp. 44, 134 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    George Condo’s harrowed sculptural portraits are predicated on the artist’s sordid instinct toward satire and his love for the malleability of the materials he uses. His gilded bronze busts, such as the present lot, are grotesque distortions of human forms, dripping mismatched features on obscene, nebulous faces. Lurid and gorgeous, they speak to sensuality and impurity, exhibiting Condo’s playful view of humanity with gritty, globular deformations. Exemplary of Condo’s sculptures, the present lot displays the influence of Cubism on his oeuvre—the work is as much about the passage of time as it is about women. Baconesque and Surreal, the smeared, lopsided face of a woman is disjointed by her large, drooping mouth and mismatched eyes. Lumpy pearls—an attempt at feminine beauty—rest on her single breast, while her rope-like short hair flops above gigantic, protruding ears. George Condo’s women are erotic but essential portraits, often nude, and reveling in a soulful femininity. Demystified by their exaggerated expressions and corrupted by their shocking fleshiness, the works at once exude vulgarity and warmth.

  • 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

102

Young Woman with Pearl Necklace

2005

Bronze.

19 1/2 x 12 x 9 in. (50 x 31 x 22 cm).

Signed, dated “Condo 05” numbered, stamped by the foundry on the reverse. This work is an artist’s proof from an edition of four plus two artist’s proofs and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for $194,500

Contemporary Art Part I

13 May 2010
New York