The exhibition of George Condo’s works entitled “The Mad and the Lonely”, which includes small-scale paintings and sculptures selected from the artist’s long career, opened yesterday at the DESTE Foundation in Hydra.

Following the tradition of portraiture, the works in the exhibition depict disparate souls who have been rejected by society and find themselves suspended between states of madness and loneliness. Victims of their own internal circumstances, these characters are rendered in the abstract, often otherworldly, yet quasi-human style that is characteristic of George Condo’s idiosyncratic style.

In this particular installation of works, Condo has combined the ancient element of polychromatic Greek painting with a new and unseen method. He has taken the idea of minimalist sculpture and combined it with the overwhelming, unimaginable presence of these haunting portraits. This is a new presentation of his work, prepared especially for the DESTE Foundation. It will have to be seen to be believed, as the exhibition will not only focus on ancient elements, such as the colourful walls in the Slaughterhouse cages, but also on the wild zoomorphic sculptures and paintings that will hang within them.

Hydra as the background of the exhibition complements Condo’s works with all its contradictions. A mythical island that harmoniously combines elements of ancient and modern times, echoing the paradoxes that simultaneously abound in Condo’s work – beauty and grotesque, humour and drama, comedy and tragedy, pleasure and horror, joy and despair, all manage to infiltrate Condo’s work and coexist harmoniously.

Hours of operation:

Daily 11:00-13:00 & 19:00-22:00
Tuesday closed