Religious Paintings. New artificial realism
The renowned New York painter George Condo, returns to the UK for the first time in four years with the exhibition Religious Paintings featuring his latest works (all executed in 2004) at leading contemporary art gallery Sprüth Magers Lee. Since the early 1980s Condo has become known for his clowns, pod people and imaginary portraits. He adopts numerous techniques and genres, subverting these codes to create a ''new artificial realism'', where reality intersects with fantasy. Condo’s objective ''is to portray the strangeness that I feel, and the strangeness that I see is the strangeness that is around me.''
In Religious Paintings Condo scrutinises the zealous newsmakers, the clergy and the idea of family to investigate the collision of public and private values in a world where we have been led astray and our hopes lost. He continues his lifelong exploration into portraiture, appropriating the compositional style from the genre’s golden age to reveal the psychological dramas of modern events such as Enron and the crisis in religion as a whole.
This is an excellent opportunity to see the important new work of George Condo.
Sprüth Magers Lee was founded in 2003 when renowned London dealer, Simon Lee became partners with international gallery owners Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers. The first exhibition, a museum standard exhibition of the late Minimalist artist Donald Judd was greeted with great critical acclaim and highlighted the versatility of the new space in what was an old Ford car showroom in the West End.
Sprüth Magers Lee
12 Berkeley Street London W1J 8DT