The Grocery Man, 1997, was painted by George Condo for his friend, the artist and set designer Robert LaVigne. LaVigne, ‘the painter among poets’ was an important member of the bohemian subculture that flourished in San Francisco in the 1950s, whose subjects included many of the central figures of the Beat movement.
A figure conjured from George Condo’s imagination, The Grocery Man, forms part of Condo’s celebrated imaginary portraits. Simultaneously ridiculous, grotesque and endearing, the portrait evokes a feeling of pathos in the viewer. Infused with an intense psychological charge, whatever discomfort we feel confronted with Condo’s wretched portraits is undermined by their ‘contradictory clownishness, which is at once vulnerable and demonic.’i
'What’s possible with painting that’s not in real life is you can see two or three sides of a personality at the same time, and you can capture what I call a psychological cubism.' —George Condo
In contrast to traditional portraiture in which dress, setting and environment provide visual cues to the sitter, the present work is better described through its title. The grey clothing worn is ambiguous and gives no further information on the subject. The Grocery Man stares beyond the picture frame with a startled and confused expression. The intimate scale, muted colour palette of purples, greys, soft oranges and pinks, and background softly rendered in painterly brushstrokes, draws the viewer into the sitters bewildered and gentle world.
Condo notoriously borrows from art history, reworking ideas that span from the Renaissance to Cubism and Surrealism, assimilating these references into his own unique interpretation. The restructured anatomies, the large bulging eyes, bulbous nose and small teeth that peep above a disarmingly tumorous shaped chin, can be compared to Picasso’s reorganised forms of the face
and figure.
'Condo never lifts entire images, nor does he borrow ready-made styles. Instead, he assimilates his references into a seamless amalgam, so that we end up viewing one aspect of art history through the presence of another.'
—Ralph Rugoff
The multitude of themes that make up Condo’s style has brought his body of work to several permanent collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and many others. Last year Condo was the subject of an important solo presentation at Hauser & Wirth, London and the largest solo exhibition of the artist’s work to date in Asia at the Long Museum in Shanghai.
On the occasion of a major exhibition of Condo’s paintings at the Hayward Gallery, London in 2011, the artist discusses his innovative approach to portraiture and the origins of the antipodular works.
• George Condo is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
• Condo started his artistic career as studio assistant to Andy Warhol.
• Condo refers to his surrealist style as ‘psychological cubism’ and ‘artificial realism’ that captures the subject’s multiplicity and is a distinctly American take on European art history.
• His works invoke art historical influences like Pablo Picasso, Diego Velázquez, Henri Matisse and Cy Twombly.
• In 2021 alone Condo had solo exhibitions at Hauser & Wirth, Long Museum, Sprüth Magers and Galerie Andrea Caratsch.
