Cy Twombly, Sculpture, (poster)
Gagosian, London
September 30 – December 21, 2019
sculpture
Victor Brauner – Signe (Le vent), 1942
Victor Brauner
Signe (Le vent), 1942
Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris
George Condo – Robot Girl, 2012
George Condo
Robot Girl, 2012
Patinated bronze
11 × 7 × 6 in
27.9 × 17.8 × 15.2 cm
Edition 2/4 + 1AP
George Condo Bio
George Condo’s work is populated by a cast of characters whose bulging eyes, bulbous cheeks, proliferating limbs, and hideous over – and under-bites set them apart as a singular species. Drawing on vastly diverse painting practices—like Pablo Picasso, Diego Velázquez, Henri Matisse, and Cy Twombly—Condo absorbs a vast range of art-historical sources, yet, at the same, creates a pictorial language characteristically his own, one that investigates the macabre, the carnivalesque, and the abject. He calls his surrealistic style “psychological cubism”, exploiting “our own imperfections—the private, off-moments or unseen aspects of humanity—that often give way to some of painting’s most beautiful moments.” Even Condo’s most abstract works, like Internal Space (2005) with its impenetrable geometric scaffolding of forms radiating from the painting’s center, explore the furthest extremes of the human psyche.
American, b. 1957, Concord, New Hampshire, based in New York, New York
Jeff Koons – Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988
Jeff Koons
Michael Jackson and Bubbles, 1988
porcelain
42 x 70 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. (106.68 x 179.07 x 82.55 cm)
Jeff Koons – Puppy Vase, 1998
Jeff Koons
Puppy Vase, 1998
Jeff Koons plays with ideas of taste, pleasure, celebrity, and commerce. “I believe in advertisement and media completely,” he says. “My art and my personal life are based in it.” Working with seductive commercial materials (such as the high chromium stainless steel of his “Balloon Dog” sculptures or his vinyl “Inflatables”), shifts of scale, and an elaborate studio system involving many technicians, Koons turns banal objects into high art icons. His paintings and sculptures borrow widely from art-historical techniques and styles; although often seen as ironic or tongue-in-cheek, Koons insists his practice is earnest and optimistic. “I’ve always loved Surrealism and Dada and Pop, so I just follow my interests and focus on them,” he says. “When you do that, things become very metaphysical.” The “Banality” series that brought him fame in the 1980s included pseudo-Baroque sculptures of subjects like Michael Jackson with his pet ape, while his monumental topiaries, like the floral Puppy (1992), reference 17th-century French garden design.
