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DiggChrist: The Subjective Nature of Objective Representation
February 23, 2008 - March 29, 2008
George Condo
Luhring Augustine Gallery
531 W 24th StLuhring Augustine is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by George Condo entitled Christ: The Subjective Nature of Objective Representation. The show will run from February 23 through March 29, 2008.
The subject of religion and its social and political implications has been on the mind of nearly everyone today. It has been featured in the headlines of every major newspaper and magazine, a controversial subject since the beginning of the war in Iraq and 9/11.
In his new body of work, Condo directs the discussion away from religion and brings it to its iconography, namely that of Christian religious painting, therein creating a form of debate on the subject of "Objective Representation." The Abstract-Expressionists first brought about the idea of “Objective Abstraction,” where an entirely subjective experience was transmitted through a work of art to be perceived by the viewer in his or her own way. It did not represent anything in particular, except perhaps a spiritual or existential mood. Could a similar experience be achieved by abstracting religious painting, the most represented subject in the history of art?
There are countless examples and interpretations of the Christian religion in art which create an individual universe unto themselves: from the Early Byzantine era to the Renaissance to today’s widespread adaptation of it in the form of calendars, postcards, and religious figurines. Condo dismantles that universe, prompting a discussion on whether there is such a thing as an objective representation of religion or its visual proponents. He concludes however, that by the re-representation of religious painting, it may be possible to have a truly objective religious experience without the aid or conventions of any prescribed text or image.
George Condo was born in 1957 in Concord, New Hampshire. His work has been exhibited extensively in both the United States and in Europe. He has been included in numerous shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim, The Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Ministère de la Culture, Paris, Musee d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona and most recently at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany.
Art Reviews of Christ: The Subjective Nature of Objective Representation
| New York Times March 21, 2008 | Karen Rosenberg | "George Condo’s paintings have approached Roman Catholic priests and altar boys as objects of wrath or scorn, and not a little hilarity. His latest paintings give Jesus himself the full treatment: lopsided ears, crooked grimaces and exaggerated overbites. After several decades spent honing his cartoonish figuration and articulating his personal religious angst, Mr. Condo is well qualified to tackle a subject whose depiction could easily have come across as pretentious or cheaply sensational. Raw and vituperative, his paintings combine the monstrosities of Goya’s voracious “Saturn” and Francis Bacon’s screaming pope with an element of caricature more suggestive of George Grosz...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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