George Condo: Pastels
Sprüth Magers New York
29 January – 1 March 2025
Hauser & Wirth New York
29 January – 12 April 2025
Abstract Male Portrait, 2024
Acrylic, pastel and metallic paint on paper
203.2 x 198.1 cm / 80 x 78 in
Photo: Thomas Barratt
© George Condo
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
The Redhead, 2024
Acrylic and pastel on paper
198.1 x 152.4 cm / 78 x 60 in
Photo: Matt Grubb
© George Condo
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Collision Course, 2024
Acrylic and pastel on paper
198.1 x 152.4 cm / 78 x 60 in
Photo: Thomas Barratt
© George Condo
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
George Condo’s two-part exhibition, ‘Pastels,’ spanning galleries at both Sprüth Magers and Hauser & Wirth in New York City, offers a glimpse into the artist’s creative process and unbound inventiveness through the medium of pastel. Condo’s new works challenge the limits of improvisation within this medium—spontaneously deploying gesso, fields of color and dramatic pastel gestures, all without the benefit of preparatory sketches—to express various states of the human psyche. The artist embraces the act of abstraction within a figural framework in novel ways, materializing the fragmented, elusive nature of ineffable thoughts and feelings.
Together, these complementary presentations highlight the sui generis power of Condo’s oeuvre. The presentation at Hauser & Wirth comprises a new series of puzzle-like portraits, which the artist has dubbed his ‘bizarre characters,’ their visages simultaneously splintered and affixed by bright geometric planes. The jagged electricity created by the faceted compositions of these works signals the complex and often conflicted nature of the mind.
At Sprüth Magers, George Condo presents frenzied color compositions alongside a series of new black-and-white pastels that incorporate deliberate drips and spatters of colored pigment. Here, overlapping and intersecting shapes that might typically suggest figurative elements forego any reference to the human face, emphasizing instead the gesture, line and rhythm of their making. With such titles as Centrifuge, Open Forms, No Direction Home, and Chaotic Combustion, these recent paintings evoke fluidity and tumult—Condo’s reflection, perhaps, on his ricocheting innermost feelings and thoughts.
Taken together, the works across both locations form a visual essay on the flair and diversity of Condo’s draftsmanship, exceptional sense of color, and mastery of any material.
GEORGE CONDO - BIOGRAPHY
Born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1957, George Condo lives and works in New York City. He studied Art History and Music Theory at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell before relocating to New York, where he worked as a printer for Andy Warhol. In 1985, George Condo moved to Paris, subsequently spending a decade moving between New York and Europe. During this period, Condo invented his hallmark ‘artificial realism’ and made his first foray into sculpture. His 11ft gold leaf sculpture ‘Constellation of Voices’ (2019) was recently acquired as a permanent gift to The Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
George Condo’s work has appeared in a number of solo exhibitions including ‘Confrontation’ in 2016 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Museum Berggruen in Berlin, Germany. In this exhibition, work by George Condo was presented alongside some of his major art historical reference points: masterpieces by Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Giacometti. From 2011 – 2012, a mid-career survey of Condo’s portraiture entitled ‘Mental States’ travelled from the New Museum, New York to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands, Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom, and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany. Condo’s work can be found in numerous renowned public collections internationally: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; The Broad Collection, Los Angeles CA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY among many others. In fall 2025, George Condo will be the subject of a major solo exhibition at Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.
HAUSER & WIRTH NEW YORK
134 Wooster Street, New York City
SPRÜTH MAGERS NEW YORK
22 E 80th Street, New York City
