Text by Margaret Andera, Rashid Johnson, Tom Teicholz.
Longo’s latest charcoal drawings of dissent reflect American media’s preoccupation with violence
Once a part of the Pictures Generation and still making art today, Robert Longo (born 1953) creates large, hyperrealistic drawings rendered in charcoal, giving his compositions a black-and-white photographic effect. He has depicted everything from swimmers to fighter jets and from cathedrals to suits of armor. This survey of Longo’s last 10 years of work centers on The Destroyer Cycle, a series he began after the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Distilling scenes of power and violence across recent American history, Longo’s glimpses range from the hyperlocal (streets in Memphis and Washington, DC) to the universal (a line of riot cops, a bullet hole in a glass window). These arresting images, eerily similar to photographs, underscore the journalistic angles adopted by US media when depicting social unrest.
STATUS: Out of stock
Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.
FORMAT: Hbk, 10.25 x 12.25 in. / 160 pgs / 160 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $62.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $92 ISBN: 9783775758031 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 11/4/2025 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: Out of stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Margaret Andera, Rashid Johnson, Tom Teicholz.
Longo’s latest charcoal drawings of dissent reflect American media’s preoccupation with violence
Once a part of the Pictures Generation and still making art today, Robert Longo (born 1953) creates large, hyperrealistic drawings rendered in charcoal, giving his compositions a black-and-white photographic effect. He has depicted everything from swimmers to fighter jets and from cathedrals to suits of armor. This survey of Longo’s last 10 years of work centers on The Destroyer Cycle, a series he began after the 2014 Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Distilling scenes of power and violence across recent American history, Longo’s glimpses range from the hyperlocal (streets in Memphis and Washington, DC) to the universal (a line of riot cops, a bullet hole in a glass window). These arresting images, eerily similar to photographs, underscore the journalistic angles adopted by US media when depicting social unrest.
