In Performance: Leila Josefowicz
On the occasion of ‘George Condo. Internal Riot’ we were honored to host the digital world premiere of an original composition commissioned by artist George Condo, composed by renowned composer-conductor Matthias Pintscher, and performed by celebrated classical violinist Leila Josefowicz.
This new piece of original music was created in response to ‘George Condo. Internal Riot,’ an exhibition of the artist’s new paintings and works on paper that runs through 23 January 2021 at Hauser & Wirth New York, 542 West 22nd Street.
‘Music is such a huge part of my life, without it I don’t know if I'd ever have painted anything. There are so many great pieces of music that have inspired me to paint...My favorite thing is to put on a record in the studio and to still be painting without noticing the fact that the music has stopped playing for hours and is just running through my head.’–George Condo
Portrait of George Condo © George Condo
About George Condo George Condo lives and works in New York City. He began drawing and painting at an early age. He went on to study Art History and Music Theory and was a performance major in classical guitar at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, where he became particularly inspired by a course on Baroque and Rococo painting. Condo moved to New York City in 1979 and in 1980 worked for 9 months as a silkscreen printer in Andy Warhol’s factory.
His first exhibition was in Los Angeles in 1983 with Ulrike Kantor Gallery, during which time he began his first 'fake Old Master' paintings. He travelled to Europe for the first time in 1983 where he connected in Cologne with the anarchic Mülheimer Freiheit group. From Cologne he went to the Canary Islands where he lived for several months and created a body of Old Master-like paintings which were part of his first solo exhibition in New York City in 1984.
This body of work lead to Condo’s famous manifesto of Artificial Realism. His work is now included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, and many of the major art museums around the world.
Portrait of Leila Josefowicz © George Condo Studios
About Leila Josefowicz Leila Josefowicz’s passionate advocacy of contemporary music for the violin is reflected in her diverse programmes and enthusiasm for performing new works. In recognition of her outstanding achievement and excellence in music, she won the 2018 Avery Fisher Prize and was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, joining prominent scientists, writers and musicians who have made unique contributions to contemporary life.
Highlights of Josefowicz’s 2019/20 season include opening the London Symphony Orchestra’s season with Sir Simon Rattle and returning to San Francisco Symphony with the incoming Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen to perform his Violin Concerto. Further engagements include concerts with Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, where she will be working with conductors at the highest level, including Susanna Mälkki, Matthias Pintscher and John Adams.
Portrait of Matthias Pintscher. Photo: Felix Broede
About Matthias Pintscher Matthias Pintscher is the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the world’s leading contemporary music ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez. From the 20/21 season, he begins a three-year appointment as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s new Creative Partner. Known equally as one of today’s foremost composers, Mr. Pintscher conducted the premiere of his new work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra, performed by Georg Nigl and the Chorus and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at their Musica Viva festival in February 2020. In summer 2020, Mr. Pintscher also serves as Music Director of the 74th Ojai Music Festival.
About ‘George Condo. Internal Riot’ Hauser & Wirth presents ‘Internal Riot’ an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by American artist George Condo. Made during the quarantine period, these works reflect the unsettling experience of physical distance and the absence of human contact during this prolonged time of social isolation. The pandemic has forced Condo to take his portraiture practice to a new level, with invented characters captured in an abstract web that reveals the humanity inherent in their fractured psychological states.
In this new body of work, Condo’s figures grapple with the overwhelming uncertainty and dissonant emotions that are being felt across the globe. The portraits reflect a range of emotions occurring simultaneously within us. The subjects depicted are devoid of connection to one another in a state where, according to the artist, ‘we are dealing with opposing forces and the elasticity of time.’ Earlier this spring Hauser & Wirth presented the online exhibition ‘Drawings for Distanced Figures.’ This new body of work which forms ‘Internal Riot’ continues to provide a powerful commentary on the divisive world we live in today.
