“What are the forbidden apples of art that should not be picked?”
—George CondoOne of George Condo’s most striking compositions, Rodrigo and His Mistress, 2007, centers on the painter’s notorious valet character and his romantic exploits. The flirtatious scene is a pinnacle of Condo’s exploration of the fiery and depraved character Rodrigo, who he describes as “the valet wearing his red jacket and his bow tie [who] when you hand him the keys to your car he drives off and you never see him again… He’s the guy you read about in the newspapers, he’s the politician that was leading a double life.”ⁱ Here, Rodrigo grins mischievously while presenting his risqué companion, who wears a sheer negligee and makes a suggestive gesture.

Rodrigo’s Mistress

 

Rodrigo and His Mistress was initially exhibited at Andrea Caratsch Gallery in George Condo: New Works in 2007. Hung alongside the similarly composed Rodrigo at his Wedding, 2007, the present example represents the titular character’s descent into impropriety. Presenting the wife and the mistress side-by-side, Condo highlights the duplicity of Rodrigo’s maneuvers. The raunchy mistress is a colorful addition to the cast of characters who populate, in Jennifer Higgie’s words, “a ribald world of crazed, comic engagement, theatrical logic, and a furious indifference to conventional niceties.”ⁱⁱ Her presentation alongside Rodrigo exemplifies Condo’s aptitude for exploring human folly.

 

Condo’s Cast of Characters 

 

Rodrigo and Jean Louis, a similarly bow-tied butler, make up the two of Condo’s most recognizable recurring characters. In Condo’s elaborate but loosely defined narrative, each holds a day job in the service industry while also leading an extraordinary double life. The formal smoking jacket and frilly tuxedo shirt worn by Rodrigo belie what he feels beneath the surface and his escapades after-hours. To this point, a pair of Condo’s Rodrigo works, The Internal Rage of Rodrigo and The Infernal Rage of Rodrigo, spotlights the character’s emotional turbulence. Jean Louis, who first appeared in 2005, laid the groundwork for his more volatile counterpart. As Simon Baker identifies: “The tightrope walk of appearance, propriety and repression that marks out Jean Louis… turns into an explosion in the firework factory for Rodrigo, who seems about a millisecond away from his ‘id’ at all times.”ⁱⁱⁱ

“The message I have distilled is ‘The artist must attack his canvas like a hunter attacks his prey,’… That is the spirit of painting.”
—George Condo

Psychological Cubism

 

The expressions of the titular subjects in Rodrigo and His Mistress exemplify Condo’s concept of psychological cubism. As Calvin Tompkins defines the term: “instead of showing different facets of an object simultaneously, as Picasso and Braque did, [Condo] paints different and often conflicting emotions in the same face.” The exaggerated features of Rodrigo and his mistress are difficult to read, grinning on the surface but seemingly enraged and unsettled. Rodrigo’s bulbous nose, cheeks, eyes and ears typify Condo’s unique cartoonish stylization, while the mistress’ face nods more directly to Picasso’s formal influence. A row of pearly teeth extends beyond her mouth while mismatched eyes—one more realistically fleshy and one raw and exposed—sit atop Condo’s signature clown-like nose. At the same time, Condo riffs on formal portrait conventions: the female subject is seated while her male partner, positioned behind her, rests a familial but distanced hand on the back of her chair. Condo’s choice is all the more surprising—and ingenious—when comparing this work to the wedding portrait in which Rodrigo is groping his bride. 

 

 

On his strategy of ‘Psychological Cubism,’ Condo explains: “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.” In this way, the grinning couple is both seemingly inviting us to watch their indecency and seething that they’ve been caught. The blend of seduction and repulsion is like watching a train wreck from which we can’t look away. Knowing that the extramarital exploit can’t end well for Rodrigo, we view them with wry amusement. 

Collector’s Digest

 

• A major figure of late 20^th and 21^st century painting, the influence of George Condo’s unique approach to figuration and the tradition of portraiture can be felt in the work of a diverse range of contemporary artists including Nicole Eisenman and Dana Schutz.
• Since his major international travelling mid-career survey Mental States in 2011, Condo has continued to exhibit widely, representing the United States at the 2013 and 2019 International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. 
• Now represented by Hauser & Wirth, his paintings are held in important international collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., amongst others. 

 

ⁱ George Condo in Simon Baker, George Condo: Painting reconfigured, London, 2015, p. 238

ⁱⁱ Jennifer Higgie, “Time’s Fool,” Frieze, 5 May, 2007, online

ⁱⁱⁱ Simon Baker, George Condo: Painting reconfigured, p. 241