LONGO, ROBERT

ROBERT LONGO

STUDY OF FERGUSON RIOT COPS | G30231

16 X 20.5 inches

Ink and charcoal on vellum

With his iconic drawings of torqued figures in suits and dresses caught as if mid-fall, Robert Longo shot to fame in the 1980s New York art world - his images resonating at the intersection of underground Punk culture and the adrenaline-fueled rush of Wall Street. Longo was a prominent member of the Pictures Generation, a group of artists who turned attention to media images and their imprints on the collective cultural psyche. He worked with multiple mediums, including popular forms such as music videos and, later in his career, produced large-scale, detailed charcoal drawings of news images, such as those documenting racial strifes in the US as well as the migration crisis in Europe. Throughout, he has maintained a keen interest in the media's representation of reality, and the artist's role in unpacking popular imagery for contemporary audiences.

As an art student in Buffalo, Longo had a wide range of interests that would inform his later works. These included the work of the Soviet avant-garde director Sergei Eisenstein, contemporary experimental filmmaking, and works coming out of the art scenes in New York and California. With his art school friends, he co-founded Hallwalls, a visionary exhibition and talks space that saw the works of some of the most cutting-edge contemporary artists of the 1970s. The space continues to operate to this day and remains one of the premier venues for contemporary art in upstate New York.