I really enjoyed George Condo’s exhibition ‘Mental States’. Impressed by both the sculptural pieces and the paintings, I felt that his works were successful in being simultaneously humorous and disturbing. The first thing I noticed about his pieces was the heavy influence of comics and cartoons. This I felt made the experience of seeing these tortured, mentally disturbed characters all the more uncomfortable, due to the connotations they had with childhood. Whilst also bringing to light the bond between our aesthetic appreciation and more juvenile pleasures. Condo states that he ‘manufactures the characters in the same way a playwright comes up with the lives of characters’. I personally found this element of storytelling to be quite prominent and engaging – it felt as if we as viewers were being invited into a morphed fantasy world, in which we are disgusted by what we see, but equally as intrigued due to our own state of mind and how easily we are able to relate. This, perhaps, is what made him stand out the most to me - the manner in which he portrayed this ‘mental state’, as Condo’s subjects and representations come very close to daily life. We are not presented with clinically insane characters, but rather ones we come unpleasantly close to identifying with. Walking through the exhibition it seemed difficult to ignore the conflicting feelings and emotions I felt towards his work as his paintings allow and encourage us to explore aspects of both our compassion and sadism, horror and laughter, and also our fascination. After having seen his paintings, I feel it was my ‘mental state’ being called to question and examined rather than that of his subjects.
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