Condo, who was part of the 1980s East Village art scene, made a series of paintings between 1984 and 1986 using images in a manner that mimicked brushstrokes, creating a motif so dense that it flirted with abstraction and seemed to radiate in all directions. (Condo called these works "expanding canvases.") Diaries of Milan, from this series, was painted, the artist has said, "all in one go," with a sable brush the size of an ink pen. It contains the early appearance of marks that would recur in Condo’s paintings beginning in the 1980s, among them googly-eyed faces, a Christ figure, and the artist's own name.
Gallery label from Contemporary Galleries: 1980-Now, November 17, 2011-February 17, 2014.
