George Condo's Distorted Portraits at Musée Maillol

The Musée Maillol in Paris presents 'George Condo: La Civilisation perdue' from April 17 to August 17, 2009, featuring works from 2005-2008. Condo's recent paintings focus on portraiture, yet his figures are grotesque composites of mismatched facial features, scars, and distorted bodies. Characters include Rodrigo in various scenarios, Uncle Joe the drunkard, a long-necked architect, a four-legged spider woman, and cartoon-like figures. Condo, who once worked as a silkscreen printer at Warhol's Factory, draws heavily from art history, particularly Surrealists like Magritte, Dalí, and Ernst, but his 2005-2008 works are most influenced by Picasso, whom he studied during his long stay in Paris from 1984 to 1995. Some paintings verge on pastiche (Smiling Girl with Black Hair, Seated Bather) or even copy (Multi-Colored Farmer). In Abstract Portrait, a female figure wears a striped sweater reminiscent of Picasso. Bacon's saturated backgrounds appear in comically lubricious scenes (The Return of Client #9). Picabia and De Chirico also come to mind. However, Condo stops short of fully assimilating these influences, resulting in a distant, rarely touching body of work, as noted by Massimiliano Gioni's term 'Condoland.' The exhibition's title 'La Civilisation perdue' suggests a deliberate mourning of this lost assimilation.