George Condo: The Monaco Pictures

The booth will feature a selection of drawings made by Condo during his time spent in Monaco in early May in preparation for his institutional show. The works in this presentation, such as ‘Anger in Monte-Carlo’ (2023) are directly inspired by the region and were made by Condo in a studio set up in one of the rooms of the Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo.

Some of the drawings, such as ‘Scenes from a Ballet’ (2023), also pay homage to the stage curtain created by Condo for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in 1998, as well as the scenography and costumes for the Opus 40 ballet, choreographed by Jean-Christophe Maillot, in 2000.

Drawing, or ‘visual thinking’ as he calls it, is central to Condo’s practice. Condo uses traditional styles and techniques to create imaginary portraits in which wild distortions suggest extreme psychological states. This presentation highlights Condo’s brilliant draftsmanship—at times comic, monstrous, tragic and endearing. Executed in crayon, pencil and ink, figures are overlapping on layered textural washes, combining multiple viewpoints to reflect various emotions occurring simultaneously.

Condo often paints when he travels and infuses the experiences of his surroundings as subject matter in his art. In Monaco, his observations of the numerous characters he observed while in either the casinos or just out and about in restaurants are all present in the works on paper—abstracted and displayed in both colourful and exacting precision.