Mental States, George Condo‘s first retrospective exhibition (which took place at the New Museum in New York City) closed earlier this month. Holland Carter, writing in the New York Times, gave it a “thumbs-up”, describing it as simply “sensational”.
Condo, is of course the artist who drew and painted Allen on a number of occasions (most notably, creating the image that graces the cover of his Selected Poems)
Condo Painting (2010), the movie by John McNaughton (and featuring cameo appearances by Allen and William Burroughs) is now hosted, in its entirety, on Ubuweb – all 86 minutes of it. Here is their succinct report:
“Condo Painting” is not, as the title might seem to suggest, an instructional film for apartment owners but rather an 86 minute documentary on the life, work and thought of George Condo, a garrulous painter with a mischievous sense of humor and an eccentric quasi-mystical view of art and the world that it inhabits. To call the film a documentary may be a bit misleading. Directed by the Chicago filmmaker John McNaughton (“Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer”, “Wild Things”, in close collaboration with its subject, “Condo Painting” tries not only to record the artist’s aesthetic theories but also to apply them. What results is a free-form excursion, studded with abstract music-video effects (and accompanied by a soundtrack featuring music by DJ Spooky, Tom Waits and The Residents), through the sensibility of a man who is sometimes enlightening, sometimes amusing and sometimes annoying.”
For more on Condo’s work, see here.
& this is a beautiful thing.