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Artist or Maker: GEORGE CONDO b. 1957
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Dimensions: 28 x 22 x 19 1/2 in. (71.1 x 55.9 x 49.5 cm).
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Provenance:
Acquired directly from the artist; Private collection, New York
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Literature:
Luhring Augustine, ed., George Condo: Existential Portraits, Berlin, 2006, p. 53 (illustrated); J. Higgie, “Time’s Fool,” Frieze, London, May 2007, p. 117 (illustrated); Gary Tatintsian Gallery Inc., ed., George Condo, Moscow, 2008, p. 66
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Notes:
"Back in 1968 as a priest in San Francisco, when he gave a communion a person would come up to the altar and kneel and he would place a drop of acid on their tongue. They called him the high priest. He is still operating today in remote areas of Argentina, last seen in the mid-70s wearing bell-bottoms, a headband and carrying various Hendrix albums into a small village in the Peruvian mountains—preaching the word of Jimi to the natives," (George Condo quoted in George Condo, Moscow, 2008, p. 66).
George Condo’s oeuvre has been largely based on the creation of cartoonlike characters, examining the psychology of human carnality and deformity through his dismantled visions of reality. His works evoke humor, encouraging viewers to revel in their own sardonic mirth. Condo’s sculptures share imagery with his paintings: imagery of characters that occupy the artist’s mind as archetypes of human conditions. Condo’s dissatisfaction with his Catholic childhood has preoccupied much of his work with, driving him to create imagery involving the vengeful mutilation of priests.
Condo’s sculpture Trapped Priest is a golden reliquary to Condo’s experience with religion. A compressed, carcass-like figure sits locked within an overturned grocery cart with its wheels in the air, the cart itself a futile object that incapacitates the damaged priest. The work thus exaggerates the futility Condo sees in his childhood of religion.
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