George Condo

George Condo’s First Show in Seoul

American artist George Condo is holding his first Seoul exhibition at the Seomi & Tuus House, Cheongdamdong.

/ Courtesy of Sara Fuller

By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter

Pot-bellied superheroes smoking cigarettes, nude women with disfigured faces, wicked-looking clowns and a scoundrel named Rodrigo are just some of the eccentric characters that inhabit the paintings of renowned American artist George Condo.

Condo, known as a master of ``artificial realism,'' is finally having his first show in Seoul. Nine of his darkly humorous paintings and three bronze sculptures are currently on display at the Seomi & Tuus House, in Cheongdam-dong, through April 29.

Unfortunately, Condo couldn't make it to Seoul for his first solo show, but he managed a telephone interview with The Korea Times from his home in New York.

Born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1957, Condo has dabbled in art and classical music since he was a child. ``It was a contest between music and art. Art finally won out. By 18 or 19, I decided I was more into painting, I was better at it,'' he said.

After moving to Boston, he found himself joining a punk rock band called The Girls. ``We went to New York and on our first night, we played at a club. The other band playing that night was called Gray, Jean-Michel Basquiat's band. The first guy I met in New York that night was Basquiat,'' he said.

Soon after moving to New York, the band broke up. ``We realized that if we became known as rock stars, there would be no way we would be taken seriously as painters. We wouldn't get any respect, so it was better to quit now before anything good actually happened,'' he laughed.

To make ends meet, Condo found a job working for Andy Warhol's factory. At first, he had to write press releases, and then to make silkscreen prints.

``Three years later, Warhol and Keith Haring went into a gallery and they bought three paintings each. Later when I met Warhol, I didn't tell him I worked for him. I felt he might be disappointed to find out I was diamond dusting his prints a few years ago. I felt Andy didn't have much respect for the people who were working for him. … But I considered it a great moment. I was lucky to be working for Andy Warhol,'' he said.


"The Superhero" by George Condo is on display at Seomi & Tuus House, Cheongdam-dong.

/ Courtesy of Seomi & Tuus

Condo continued to pursue art, delving in ``artificial realism,'' which he says is the realistic representation of anything artificial. ``This wouldn't have been possible if the world wasn't as plastic or as artificial as it was in the mid-20th century,'' he said.

In his art works, he's created a cast of wildly unusual characters named Jean Louis and Rodrigo (whom he described as a ``scoundrel and a parking lot attendant.'')

``I guess you can say I manufacture the characters in the same way a playwright comes up with the lives of characters. … Jean Louis and Rodrigo are serial characters. They live out a life that I never could. They live out a life while I'm in a room painting. They're experiencing life for me,'' he said.

Condo employs the Old Masters techniques in his works, inspired by Surrealism, Pop Art, Modernism, Italian Renaissance and Spanish Baroque.

After talking about art, Condo steers the conversation to the issue on everyone's mind: the economic crisis. He noted there's a prevailing mood of gloom among art circles, especially in New York and London.

``Art is a luxury. The people who buy (art), they're also in a crisis. Galleries are also getting nervous. The atmosphere is doom and gloom, and everyone is always talking about how awful the art world is, how bad the art fair was. When this happens, they stop focusing on the art,'' he said.

Despite the depressing atmosphere in the art world, Condo said the main objective of his art is to ``turn something negative into positive.''

``It's already depressing out there. But my goal is not to make people laugh. I just reflect the way it is in my art, and do it not in a way that is dated by the time it was made. Three years from now, people won't say that `Oh, it was made during the great crisis of 09.' Hopefully, the characters transcend time,'' he said.

Visit www.seomituus.com or call (02) 511-7305.

cathy@koreatimes.co.kr