IMAGE DETAILS

Galerie von Vertes

George Condo (New Hampshire, Concord 1957)
Female composition, 2006
Oil on canvas
165.1 x 152.4 cm
Verso signed and dated 'Condo 06'

George Condo, Female Portrait, 2006
'Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before'. Edgar Allan Poe

Like the ‘Manichini’ or metaphysical mannequins of Giorgio de Chirico that reject a face as a symbol of status and identity, Female Composition is created as a hand puppet on a stick wearing a distinguished cloak, mocking the traditional depictions of the female portrait as seen in the works by Parmigianino, Rembrandt, and Picasso. This ironic interpretation depicts the woman as a faceless puppet with breasts, a cape, neckless and head topped with a carrot.

Condo simultaneously offers a deep respect for art history and a blatant disregard for conventional narratives. In his own words: “As far as I’m concerned, the Renaissance was yesterday, and Cubism was a hundred years before it.” (George Condo quoted in Simon Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, New York 2015, p. 104). Female portrait perfectly encapsulates Condo’s concept of Artificial Realism. Exploring the carefully constructed conventions of traditional portraiture and how our reality is made up of artificial components, this majestic dystopian portrait ingeniously challenges the artificiality of visual representation.