“Kandinsky, Picasso, Caravaggio […] created their own language which was somehow comprised of everything that came before them and took it to a new level. That's my intention as an artist.”
—George Condo
George Condo’s art defies linearity, weaving together the threads of history and modernity to create works that transcend time. Within the present work, Condo masterfully blends old and new, drawing on the rich traditions of European portraiture while reinterpreting them through the lens of Renaissance, Baroque, Expressionism, Abstract and Pop Art. This fusion of styles turns his work into a vivid conversation across time, reshaping visual language into something nostalgic yet strikingly contemporary.
Untitled serves as a true metaphor for Condo’s approach to contemporaneity, where ideas, lessons, and experiences of the past directly influence the way our reality is constructed. The sitter is portrayed in a traditional Renaissance portraiture format, dressed in 15th-century attire- a clear acknowledgement of the weight of art history on the visual language of today. The pictorial vocabulary of the 21st century is represented by a youthful and trendy outfit subtly layered beneath the cape. Condo’s signature method commonly involves layering faces and emotions to create complex expressions that imbue his characters with depth and dimension. In the present piece, this method extends beyond facial expressions, integrating the entire composition.
The work’s background symbolically draws on art history's poignant use of ultramarine blue, originally derived from semi-precious stones, to demonstrate wealth, humility, and purity. This colour became emblematic of humility, purity and wealth. By employing this colour scheme, Condo ascribes greater significance to the complexity of human consciousness, illustrating how similarly to art, it is a continuum that evolves over time, from the simplest living forms to the most sophisticated human systems.
George Condo occupies a leading position among Contemporary American painters. Beginning his artistic journey as a teenager, Condo developed his own unique narrative, striving to express not only complex emotional states but also contemporary political, social and cultural challenges. With the development of his signature style, ‘Psychological Cubism’, the artist merged various styles and techniques to construct figures that encapsulate human interpretations of the world. The grotesque protagonists of his canvases, often portraying a plethora of emotions within a single expression, symbolise the multitude of challenges confronting humanity.
In the present work, the depicted kaleidoscope of forms and colours, inspired by Cubist pioneers such as Picasso and Braque, does not merely showcase fragmented personages but delves into the profound depth of the human psyche. The dynamic elements of Untitled pay tribute to Condo’s lifelong interest in music, which paralleled his journey in the visual arts. His classical guitar training, alongside his academic background in art history and music theory, brought a multidimensional aspect to his work. The present work showcases this musical interest most notably within the protagonist’s expression, where Condo incorporates elements that evoke musical note charts, replacing sharps and flats with lines and colours, and simultaneously echoing Kandinsky’s belief in the connection between music and art to reflect the dynamism of modernity - with all its virtues and flaws.
