Donated by the artist to be sold to benefit the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2013, George Condo's Purple and Yellow Abstraction represents a brilliant fusion of his trademark brand of ‘psychological Cubism’ and his commitment to constantly pushing the boundaries that separate figurative and abstract painting. A rich optical puzzle spliced by overlapping forms and charcoal lines, the work offers fragmented glimpses of ogling eyes, grinning teeth and voluptuous breasts that clash and churn collide within the prodigious yet whimsical riddle. An enormous range of human emotion is on display across this spectrum of figures; joy, terror, hilarity, fury, and ecstasy collide in a chaotic yet elegant cacophony of forms that bridges the gap between an emotional state and a physical reality. Condo painted Purple and Yellow Abstraction at a moment in his career when he had pushed the limits of his iconic ‘pod’ figures, now fragmenting, extrapolating, and wedging them back together in impossible configurations. Just as Pablo Picasso fractured the picture plane in order to reveal the way light hits different sides of an object, so Condo shattered the human psyche in order to reveal different angles of the same person.

Following a nine-month stint as the diamond duster in Andy Warhol’s infamous Factory, George Condo emerged onto the 1980s New York art scene at the eager age of twenty-three alongside seminal figures Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the latter of whom is stated to have officially convinced Condo to pursue a career as a professional artist. Like Haring and Basquiat, Condo was critically engaged throughout the eighties in the inauguration of a new form of figurative painting that stylistically blended the representational and the abstract. [CM1] Condo coined the terms ‘artificial realism’ and ‘psychological cubism’ to define his hybridization of art historical influences, specifically his fusion of the Old Master subject matter with the distorted geometric perspectives of Cubism. Through a prolific output of compelling yet grotesque portraits, Condo established himself by the turn of the century as one of the preeminent figurative painters of the contemporary era; his method of extrapolating and distorting traditional figurative motifs through an abstract lens has influenced an entire generation of artists working today.

Purple and Yellow Abstraction represents a specific variation of Condo’s continued series of Drawing Paintings in which he synergizes the traditionally separate processes of drawing and painting into one fluid gestural expression. Commenting on the paintings in this series, Condo says, “They are about freedom of line and color and blur the distinction between drawing and painting. They are about beauty and horror walking hand in hand. They are about improvisation on the human figure and its consciousness[CM2] ” (the artist in “George Condo: Drawing Paintings,” Skarstedt Gallery, 4 November 2011). Heralding an unprecedented creative fervor of spontaneous mark-making, the present work departs from Condo’s more carefully planned portrait paintings toward a reckless embrace of the sketchy grit inherent in the alloyed mediums of sooty charcoal and pastel carved into wet acrylic. Ultimately, Purple and Yellow Abstraction revels in the unforeseen beauty and wildly alluring entropy of Condo’s improvisational genius.

Unlike any preceding series, the present work marvels in Condo’s intellectual game that obfuscates and blurs the traditional delineations between drawing and painting, finished and unfinished, balanced and unbalanced, and flat two-dimensionality versus sculptural depth. In the Cubist topography of its beguiling composition, sensuous line and Cézanne-like passages of flat color overlap in a densely layered web of unrestrained abstraction. The gracefully churning collision of forms is perhaps one of the most honest and accurate representations of a complicated modern psychology: teeth, glee, rage, smiles, insanity, cheeks, loneliness, and eyes crushed together in an almost unbearable state of being. Condo has established himself in the canon of Western art history as a master puppeteer of the human psyche, presenting to his audience forms that delight and repulse, amuse and sadden, welcome and alienate. His unraveling and subsequent reassembly of various pictorial languages has cemented him as one of today’s most clever and cutting-edge contemporary painters. As Holland Cotter notes in his review of George Condo: Mental States at the New Museum in 2011: “Mr. Condo is not a producer of single precious items consistent in style and long in the making. If that’s what you want from painting, he’ll disappoint you. He’s an artist of variety, plentitude and multiformity. He needs to be seen in an environment that presents him not as a virtuoso soloist but as the master of the massed chorale.” (Holland Carter, “A Mind Where Picasso Meets Looney Tunes,” The New York t.mes s, January 27, 2011). Exuding a mystifyingly psychological aura with gorgeous permutations of line, color, and form, Purple and Yellow Abstraction endures as a stunning reminder of Condo’s elusive genius in the act of abstraction.

此畫色彩絢斕，有如令人目眩神迷的萬花筒，畫面上密密麻麻的人物糅合了喬治・康多自成一家的「心理立體主義」，及其不斷挑戰具象和抽象繪畫界線的決心。重疊的形體和炭筆線條拼湊出一片視覺幻境，秋波蕩漾的大眼睛、咧嘴而笑露出的齒列、豐滿誘人的胸部擠在一起，編成一張龐大怪誕的謎網。人物身上流露出各式各樣的情緒，歡愉、恐懼、滑稽、瞋怒、狂喜等形態混成一卷漩渦，填補了情感狀態和現實世界之間的缺口。康多創作此畫前已將獨創一格的「豆莢人」推至極限，在這裡，他令人物分崩離析，再強行將他們重新組合成荒誕的形體。畢加索為了展示光線照射在同一個物體不同表面的情況，從而將畫面解構成碎片；康多則是將人類心理抽絲剝繭，從而展示同一個人不同的精神面貌。

康多曾在安迪・沃荷著名的「工廠」工作室當過九個月鑽石塵掃塵員。在1980年代，他以二十三歲的初犢之齡在紐約藝壇嶄露頭角，同期大師還有凱斯・哈林和尚・米榭・巴斯基亞，據聞正是後者說服康多成為職業藝術家。跟哈林及巴斯基亞一樣，康多在八十年代積極提倡一種結合具象和抽象風格的具象繪畫新形式。他將過往的藝術流派熔冶一爐，尤其是古典西洋題材和立體主義扭曲幾何透視的結合，並創造出「人為寫實主義」和「心理立體主義」等語彙。康多創作出大量詭異怪誕的作品，在世紀之交躋身當代傑出具象畫家之列；他透過抽象視角，試探和改變傳統具象表現手法，對當今一整代藝術家影響深遠。

此畫屬於康多「素描油畫」系列的一個分支，將傳統以來獨立的素描與油畫創作過程，匯合成流暢的表達手法。藝術家提及這個系列時説：「這些作品關乎線條與色彩的自由，使素描與油畫的特徵變得模糊。美麗與驚慄並行其中。它們亦表現出人物的即興狀態及其意識」（喬治・康多，〈喬治・康多：素描油畫〉，斯卡爾斯泰特畫廊，2011年11月4日）。此畫脫離以往深思熟慮的肖像繪畫，逐步趨向隨性為之的創作領域，以烏黑的炭筆和粉彩刻畫在濕潤的壓克力彩上，透過合成媒介的本質，表現出速寫素描的質感，開創史無前例的率性創作模式。前所未見的美與不羈的狂亂在此渲染得淋漓盡致，展露康多興之所至的灑脫天才。

此畫與先前的系列不同，它巧妙地令素描與油畫、完成與未完成、平衡與不平衡、二維平面與雕塑立體深度之間的傳統分野變得模糊，叫人嘆為觀止。立體主義形貌下的動人構圖、婀娜線條和塞尚式扁平色塊，在無拘無束的抽象層網中緊密交疊。牙齒、歡欣、暴怒、微笑、瘋狂、臉頰、孤獨、眼睛以幾乎讓人難以忍受的狀態混為一體，這些彼此碰撞的形態或許是現代複雜心理最赤裸、精準的詮釋。康多把自己定義為西方主流藝術中的人類心理操縱大師，向觀眾傳達討人歡喜又惹人憎惡、趣致又傷感、溫暖親近又冷漠疏離的意象。他把圖像語言拆散後重組，在當今之世堪稱其中一位最能劍走偏鋒的睿智畫家。霍蘭・科特評論新美術館2011年的展覽「喬治・康多：精神狀態」時寫道：「康多不會以一成不變的風格長年累月地繪製單一事物。如果你希望在繪畫中看到上述演繹，最後只會敗興而歸。康多是一位追求豐富多元、千姿百采的藝術家，他喜歡以合唱指揮、而非獨奏大師的形象示人」（霍蘭・科特，〈畢加索遇上樂一通的天才大腦〉，《紐約時報》，2011年1月27日）。此畫裡的線條、色彩和形態相互交織，散發出古怪迷離的氣息，反映康多高深莫測的抽象表現造詣。