Beschreibung:

Property of an Important European Collector George Condo The Homeless Hobo 《流浪漢》 2009 signed, titled and dated 'Condo 09 The Homeless Hobo' on the reverse oil on canvas 216 x 190.6 cm. (85 x 75 in.) Painted in 2009.
Provenance Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow Acquired from the above by the present owner Catalogue Essay Painted in 2009, George Condo’s Homeless Hobo towers above the viewer, the canvas stretching over two metres in height. Within the vast expanse of the picture frame, the figure depicted is a colossus—and a colossus with a maniacal grin at that. Homeless Hobo features one of Condo’s almost iconic characters—his most famous paintings show people whose faces appear contorted through a variety of facial expressions all ramped up to a new extreme. With its references to the tradition of Western painting and its deliberate iconoclasm, with its playful atmosphere and its complex, provocative imagery, Homeless Hobo perfectly demonstrates the wide-ranging popularity of Condo’s works—they are found in museum collections throughout the world, while also featuring on the cover of one of Kanye West’s albums, released only the year after this picture was painted. Homeless Hobo forms part of a group of paintings that began in 2006, showing clown-like figures in costumes decorated with multi-coloured dots. These ‘Pierrot’ figures derive from the Commedia dell’Arte, the centuries-old entertainment tradition that originated with Italian players in the Seventeenth Century. But in Homeless Hobo and its sister-paintings, the wide-eyed innocence of the original Pierrot has been wilfully and playfully subverted by Condo, replaced by a combination of emotions that drive the face in different directions, the eyes bulging, the teeth bared. This is a perfect example of what Condo has referred to as ‘psychological cubism’: the eponymous figure in Homeless Hobo has an expression that ‘goes between a scream and a smile.’ Condo has explained that this ‘reflects simultaneous emotions or conversations with the conflicting voices in your head’ (George Condo quoted in Ossian Ward, ‘George Condo: Interview’, Time Out, 6 Feb 2007, reproduced at www.timeout.com). Condo has filled Homeless Hobo with a crazed energy, captured both in the expression on the subject’s face and in the brushwork that covers its vast expanse. Even the tufts of hair that emanate from the titular hobo’s head have an explosive appearance, thrusting in their different directions from the centre. Meanwhile, the nose appears to be both that of a clown, a small sphere, and also the central vortex of all the facial features. Condo has filled his character with humour and personality as well as a disturbed mania. In so doing, he has revealed the way in which he responded to the energy of the art scene of 1970s and 1980s New York in which he first came to prominence, alongside his friends Jean-Michel-Basquiat and Keith Haring However, where they brought the language of the street to art—and sometimes vice versa—Condo was tapping into the raw passion that was fuelling them. Like Basquiat, Condo was also a musician, part of an entire cultural scene that was taking place at that point in time; however, Condo subsequently moved to Paris, living in an environment that was utterly different, responding to cultural cues that were very separate. Working at the heart of the European art world, Condo was able to absorb influences as diverse as the Surrealists, Francis Picabia Gilles Deleuze and even his own compatriot William S. Burroughs. These all percolate through works such as Homeless Hobo: styles, subjects and references conflate and collide under Condo’s guidance. Condo is an erudite artist, and frequently combines references to artists as diverse as this. Indeed, the presence of this leering ‘Pierrot’ could be seen as a response to the pensive melancholy of Antoine Watteau’s painting of the same subject, dating from 1718-19 and now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Similarly, the jarring facial expression might be intended to burst the delicate ambience of, say, Pablo Picasso’s Rose Period pictures of circus folk caught in moments of transitory sadness and contemplation. In Homeless Hobo, the deran