Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Tim Griffin, Haley Mellin.
A sequel to the 2011 publication, Charcoal Volume 2 presents the charcoal drawings of American artist Robert Longo (born 1953) from 2012 to the present. This large-format, elaborately designed catalog—printed on natural paper using a tritone process and bound in half linen—is a continuation of the first volume. It includes his recent series from the past 10 years such as Death from Above (2012–16), Hungry Ghosts (2015–17) and the Destroyer Cycle (2016–20). Together, they form a comprehensive compendium of this central oeuvre by the legendary New York artist, who was a key figure in founding the Pictures Generation in the 1980s and also directed some of the most iconic music videos of the decade. In this new catalog, essays by Tim Griffin and Haley Mellin address the existential questions of our time that are at the heart of these new, large-scale, hyperrealistic drawings: war, violence, capitalism, the rising division of American society and the possibilities of political protest and individual freedom in the face of the overwhelming power of the media.
Published by Thaddaeus Ropac. Edited by Oona Doyle, Lian Giloth, Hella Pohl. Foreword by Qing Liu. Text by Michel Tapié, Dominique de Font-Réaulx.
Robert Longo's (born 1953) newest series of monumental charcoal drawings pay homage to the European pioneers of postwar art. Following his 2014 series of drawings based on American Abstract Expressionism, in this volume and its accompanying exhibition Longo explores the work of Karel Appel, Jean Dubuffet, Arshile Gorky, Asger Jorn, Yves Klein, Willem de Kooning, Maria Lassnig, Piero Manzoni, Joan Mitchell, Pierre Soulages, Wols and Zao Wou-Ki. By revisiting their work in a contemporary context, Longo offers this new body of work as a "historical construction," highlighting the continued influence of these artists and finding a present-day resonance in their ability to transcend through their work the fraught circumstances of a radically changing world. The book features color reproductions, close-up details and essays.
This catalogue focuses on Robert Longo’s (born 1953) recent series of charcoal drawings of well-known Abstract Expressionist paintings. The original paintings are immediately recognizable, but it is the overlooked or imperceptible details of the complex surface, the tactility of the paint, the brushstrokes and the pattern of the canvas that Longo has made visible in his translation from color to black and white, paint to charcoal. Exploring his ambivalence toward painting, Longo’s drawings address the historical magnitude of Abstract Expressionism in art-historical and cultural contexts. Along with the Abstract Expressionist drawings, the book includes Longo’s enormous seven-panel drawing of the US Capitol building and a 17-foot high black wax– surfaced sculpture of an American flag that appears to collapse into or fall through the floor.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Hal Foster, Kate Fowle, Thomas Kellein.
His large-format works contrast the innocence of sleeping toddlers, the tranquil grandiosity of Earth and the planets, roses in bloom and Gothic cathedrals with threatening images of atom bomb explosions, fighter pilots, monster waves, sharks and the muzzles of revolvers. Inexorably and precisely, Longo records the state of our world; his powerful motifs give form and expression to the feelings of fear and longing felt by people in the 21st century, and affect the viewer with the full force of the medium.
Back in print, this large-format, elaborately designed book—printed on natural paper using a tritone process, bound in half-cloth and distributed in four different cover designs—has been created in close collaboration with the artist and affords a comprehensive overview of his charcoal drawings from the past decade.
Published by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Edited by Alessandra Bellavita, Qing Liu. Text by Olivia Murphy.
Luminous Discontent features new large-scale charcoal drawings by Robert Longo (born 1953). From a massive iceberg to a shattered glass window and X-rays of paintings by Old Masters, all of the images are rendered in Longo’s signature medium. It opens with details of works to draw the reader in.
Published by Hatje Cantz. Text by Isabelle Graw, Robert Longo.
Stand was a 2012 site-specific installation by Robert Longo (born 1953) which fully utilized the unique architecture of the Capitain Petzel gallery in Berlin. The building was shrouded with an enormous monochrome depiction of the American flag. Upon entering the gallery, the viewer was immediately confronted with a large charcoal drawing. This was flanked by two drawings: one depicted a mass of Occupy Wall Street protesters; the other, a lone American soldier walking toward an uncertain and ominous future. With the consent of the artist, Longo also updated the style and content of Hans Haacke's Oelgemaelde, Hommage à Marcel Broodthaers (1982). He replaced Ronald Reagan, opposite an image of a crowd protesting the deployment of American missiles in Bonn, with President Obama, facing Tea Party protestors. The remainder of the gallery exhibited a group of 25 drawings and featured a performance based upon the classic American novel Moby Dick.
Robert Longo's mastery of charcoal drawing has made him one of America's most admired artists. With every new work he reinvests the tradition of history painting with fresh relevance and impact, rendering majestic, era-defining images in a sensuous and sculptural photorealism. Longo's sense of both literal scale and historical scope is monumental, as a survey of his numerous serial works soon reveals: the Freud Drawings cycle of 2000 with its large-format treatment of Edmund Engelmann's photographs of Sigmund Freud's Vienna apartment, taken days before Freud's departure for London; or the 2003 Sickness of Reasonseries, with its high-contrast images of atomic explosions, combining sublimity and terror; or the famous one-drawing-per-day Magellan sequence of the mid-1990s, a virtual atlas of the iconography of the 1990s, intermixed with images from Longo's immediate daily life. This handsome, chunky volume surveys Longo's drawings of the past two decades, from Magellan and the Freud cycle to Monsters (2000), Sickness of Reason (2003), Ophelia (2002), Beginning of the World (2007) and others. Robert Longo was born in Brooklyn in 1953 and received a BFA in sculpture from Buffalo State College in 1975. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Longo collaborated with musicians loosely associated with New York's No Wave movement, such as Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham and Jonathan Kane, and formed the band Robert Longo's Menthol Wars. In the 1980s, as his Men in the City drawing series was winning him critical acclaim, Longo also directed several music videos, including New Order's “Bizarre Love Triangle” and R.E.M.'s “The One I Love.” In 1995 he directed the cyberpunk film Johnny Mnemonic, starring Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren and “Beat” Takeshi.
Published by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Edited by Alessandra Bellavita, Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts. Text by Jonathan T.D. Neil.
Dedicated to the three major monotheistic world religions, Robert Longo's God Machines drawing sequence depicts Mecca in Saudi Arabia, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The drawings are enormous, and realized in the artist's widely admired ravishing chiaroscuro. This catalogue records their exhibition in Paris.
Published by Kerber. Edited by Klaus Albrecht Schroder and Martin Hentschel. Essays by Werner Spiess and Rainer Metzger.
On June 4, 1938, having paid the “German Reich Escape Tax” and the “Jew Property Tax,” Sigmund Freud left his apartment at 19 Berggasse forever. A few days before his emigration from Vienna to London, photographer Edmund Engelmann courageously and secretively recorded Freud's legendary residence, documenting it in photographs that were eventually published. An old volume of these photographs was presented to artist Robert Longo in 1993, acting as the catalyst and primary source material for the 30 large-size charcoal works that constitute The Freud Drawings. Via Longo's charcoal, Freud's deserted rooms become an admonition of a destroyed world, tension-filled reminiscences of a place both momentous and monstrous, eclipsed and strange.
Robert Longo: The New Beyond
Robert Longo
Robert Longo: Charcoal
Robert Longo: Luminous Discontent
Robert Longo: Stand
Robert Longo: Charcoal
Robert Longo: God Machines
Robert Longo: The Freud Drawings