Christiaan Conradie

(1984 – )

Christiaan Conradie

Contemporary

Overview

What matters is matter – flesh, bone, muscle – and then another dimension – dimensionless – that makes us human. Human embodiment is the anchor and ground from which Christiaan Conradie departs into the groundless. Nothing in his world is possible without the bodies’ primacy – felt, touched, painted. If the human head is primary – the defining motif-factor-condition for the painting – its substance is only realisable when, in the aftermath of the painting of flesh-bone-muscle, one arrives upon its tenuous and fragile complexity.

Conradie loves the aged body, primarily male. What he sees is not the being as he/she imagines themselves to be, but what their bodies generate. We all generate. Self-possession is a fantasy. As is self-aggrandising portraiture. Conradie does nothing of the sort. Instead, he shifts the yearning intrinsic in a body, asks what it is, not what it claims itself to be. That he does so without permitting himself the fantasy that he – the painter – knows the consciousness of his subject, is remarkable.

Conradie has given up the ghost, centuries in the making, that he, the painter, knows his subject. Instead, what we get is a rune and an oddity, a figure in situ whose consequence is irreducible to their consciousness, or the artist’s projection thereof. Instead, what we get is doubt – the subject’s, the artist’s – which outweighs the Kantian fantasy: Know Thyself. In an Age of Anger, in which there is zero room for human complexity, it is vital that we pay attention to art thar recognises the criticality of doubt.

No surety exists in a likeness. No one looks in the way they expect themselves to. Ever. We are bludgeoned by time’s refusal to subject itself to our demands.

That Conradie has chosen to paint the aged white – primarily male – body is instructive. At this moment in history – with its rage against white male paternalism – it is a striking choice of focus. Old bodies don’t care for young ideas, they say. And yet, this is what the artist has chosen to do – to embrace the aged and make them anew. He breaks away from the fetish of age, alters why and how we look at older humans, shapeshifts what older people are supposed to be. How so? Because he does not merely look at them, but because, inwardly, he sees himself and knows that no one, no human, is ever the sum of their apparent condition. Agism is a folly, tiredness perpetual for anyone.

Conradie asks us to rethink naturalism, portraiture, and, in the midst of an embodied presence, the magical reality that is existence. He reminds us that we are not the victims of this age of anger, that love, care, compassion, understanding, still thrive. He does not seek to explain the world or alter it. He seeks instead to liberate us from its narrow heart.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2021
131 A Gallery – ‘Against a narrow heart’, Cape Town, South Africa

2018
Volta New York, New-York, USA

2017
Galerie 55 Bellechasse, Paris, France

2016
Galerie 55 Bellechasse, Paris, France

2015
RVCA Gallery, San Francisco, USA

2014
Rust en Vrede Gallery – ‘Love before breakfast’ , Cape Town, South Africa
Celaya Brothers Gallery, ´This is the wind and this is the breeze´, México City, México

2012
Casa Verdi – ‘Los otros y Anne’, Barcelona, Spain

Group Exhibitions

2023

Sunny Side Up, Group exhibition, Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022
New Day Spring Group Exhibition, Graham Contemporary, Johannesburg

2021
Group Show, 131 A Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2020
Group Show, 131 A Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2015
SurfCity Festival, Barcelona, Spain
Group Show, SMITH, Cape Town, South Africa
Contracted to Galerie 55 BelleChasse, Paris, France

2014
Group Show, Casa Lamm, México City, México
Pig Me Auction – Mexico City, Mexico

2013
Auction, Traeger y Pinto, México City, México
Group Show, Galeria JLS, Valle Bravo, México
Group Show, Myl Arte Contemopráneo – ‘Codigos Animalistas’, México City, México
Group Show, White Spider – ‘Sing Sweet Songs of Conviction’, México City, México
Group Show, Salon 91 – ‘Home is wherever I´m with you’, Cape Town, South Africa

2012
Group Show, Salon 91 – ‘I’d rather be swimming’, Cape Town, South Africa
Group Show, A Word of Art – ‘The Space In Between’, Cape Town, South Africa
Group Show, Salon 91 – ‘Impression: Sunset’, Cape Town, South Africa
Group Show, Spencer Street Studios – ‘A collection of works’ , Cape Town, South Africa
Group Show, Tjing Tjing Exchange – ‘A group show’, Cape Town, South Africa
Group Show, Searle Street Post – ‘Last Minute’, Cape Town, South Africa

2010
Group Show, Painting and Performance, Riebeeck Kasteel, South Africa
Group Show, Wessel Snyman Creative, Cape Town, South Africa
Principal Painter in Andrew Putter’s ‘Sketch Assembly 1’, Cape Town, South Africa

Art Fairs

2019
Frame Art Fair, New York, USA (Angel Orensanz Foundation)
Frame Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland

2018/2019
Frame Art Fair, Miami, USA

2018
Contemporary Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
Seattle Art Fair, Seattle, USA
Art Market Hamptons, New-York, USA
Frame Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland
Art New York, New-York, USA
Frame Art Fair, Paris, France
Art Wynwood, Miami, USA
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco, USA
Art On Paper, New-York, USA
Volta New York, New-York, USA (Solo)
London Art Fair, London, UK

2017
Superfine! New York, New York, USA
Art New York, New York, USA
Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco, USA
YIA Art Fair Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
Art Boca Raton, Miami, USA
YIA Art Fair Maastricht, Maastricht, Holland
Scope New York, New York, USA
Art Wynwood Miami, Miami, USA
London Art Fair, London, England
Art Market Hamptons, New York, USA
Art Pampelonne Saint Tropez, France
Art Salzburg Contemporary and Antiques, Salzburg, Austria
Scope Basel, Basel, Switzerland
YIA Art Fair Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Art Salzbourg, Salzbourg, Austria
Art Market Hamptons, New York, USA
Contemporary Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey
Cube Art Fair, Brussels, Belgium
YIA Art Fair, Paris, France
Sofa Chicago, Chicago, USA
Art Miami, Miami, USA

2016
Scope New York, New York, USA
Art Wynwood, Miami, USA
Art Palm Beach, Miami, USA

2015
YIA, Paris, France
Art Silicon Valley, San Francisco, USA
Art Miami New York, New York, USA
Surfcity Festival, Barcelona, Spain
Context, Miami, USA