Allen Ginsberg portrait of George Condo, Courtesy of New Museum
At the New Museum’s retrospective of George Condo’s art there is a wall of portraits, big and small, forming a colourful explosion that is much a depiction of the state of Condo’s mind as it is an idea of the mental state of contemporary society.
While the wall of characters appropriate the styles of many Western artists of the past 500 years – from Velázquez to Picasso to Arshile Gorky – Condo’s own work has influenced many newer generations of artists, among them John Curran who has cited Condo as a pivotal inspiration for him in the 1990s.
