Not limited to breaking rappers, Kanye West has also boosted the mainstream appeal of artist George Condo. Kanye selected the painter to create the cover art for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, as well as the album’s first single “Power”. Since then Condo’s name has gone from art magazines to Hip Hop blogs. Here he speaks with The New Yorker’s Calvin Tomkins about some of his most famous pieces, and of course, working with Kanye West…
In this week’s issue, Calvin Tomkins writes about George Condo, a modern artist who works within the European tradition of portraits, landscapes, and figure studies. “To be widely recognized in today’s art world, a painter needs, to begin with, a technique or a material or a concept that nobody else has claimed,” Tomkins writes. “George Condo rediscovered Old Master painting.” Here Tomkins discusses Condo’s work and the controversial cover art he made for Kanye West’s most recent album.”