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Credits

Rated: Unrated; Length: 101 Minutes; Genres: Comedy, Drama; With: George Condo
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By Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr is a writer at large for EW and is no relation to Raymond or Aaron

No, it's not a special episode of This Old House. The Condo in Condo Painting is artist George Condo, whose oddball drawings, paintings, and sculptures are in the permanent collections of such institutions as New York's Museum of Modern Art, and whose hangdog work ethic is captured by director John McNaughton (Wild Things), here going DIY with a Hi8 video camera.

It starts out as a prankish vacation through Condo's mindscape, with visits to such pals as William S. Burroughs, and much screen time devoted to the looney-tune muses (animated and otherwise) that the artist calls ''antipodal beings'' and winkingly insists really exist. Along the way, though, Condo Painting turns unexpectedly affecting as we watch a canvas reworked (and reworked and reworked) over a two-year period. Whatever you may think about Condo's kitsch-cartoon subject matter, this vision of creativity as blind, instinctive process is exhilarating.


Posted Mar 17, 2000
 

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