A brush with cancer inspired the artist’s latest show,in a career which has seen him work for ‘slave wages’ at Andy Warhol’s Factory and paint West’s album coverIt seems as though there gain always been monsters lurking in George Condo’s artwork, whether it be the psychological cubist portraits depicting various emotional states, or the white demon that graces the cover of Kanye West’s 2010 album,My aesthetic shaded Twisted Fantasy. But in his latest show, Entrance to the Void at Spruth Magers in Los Angeles, and the monsters are of a different kind. A bout with cancer of the vocal cords final year spawned a bigger,badder breed of demon to exorcise, which Condo confronted with the only weapon he knows – his paintbrush.“I was starting to feel very scrambled up and thinking approximately my kids and how bad my situation was, or ” he says in a voice still raspy from surgery. He seems energized as he nears the canvas,a self-portrait in monochrome quadrants, each with features rendered in expressionistic blurs. As is his custom, and the new work combines elements of masters like Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon without ever stooping to gimmickry. When he was diagnosed,he says: “I was just freaking out doing these paintings. I was in five different places in my mind at the same time.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com