There are many shades of black, black within black within black. Black couples with disturbing images like mass shootings or police riots, and black goes down a lot. Photographic black hole. Then you take a dark and violent image, draw it layer after layer of charcoal, blown up to monumental size where you discover that this is not a photo but a work of art. You slow down and stop, still stunned. Now you see the texture, the line, the negative space, and the sheer artistry in making these pictures. The images we look at every day on the Internet. You begin to see that these images come alive. These images have consequences. Archetypal images: an atomic bomb, crashing waves, a shark’s mouth, a growing tree, a rubber raft for refugees on the open sea—these are Robert Longo’s subjects.
I was honored to meet Longo at his Soho studio, where he has worked for the past 40 years. When Alex, one of his assistants, comes in, he warns me that anything I put down will be covered in coal. Fresh white lilies are placed in vases throughout the studio, a sharp contrast to the two large gray tarps placed over the projectors used to combine images. Black dust covers the entire area. On the walls are large works in progress, all on paper. A long view—the crowds of refugees with umbrellas and close together—the whale’s head, its eye small but seeing. As we speak, Longo takes the eraser and adjusts the eye.
In 1970, when he saw the now-historic photo of the Kent State shooting, he realized that he had gone to a high school with a student lying dead on the ground after being killed by police. Longo was 17 years old. “I was totally inspired,” he told the Observer. A few years later, he became known as one of the Photos Generation who challenged the images of the media with their creativity: Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, Laurie Simmons and Cindy Sherman, his partner for several years who is still his close friend. He made a series Men in Cities1979-83, a series of graphite drawings of men and women, well-dressed, showing mental flexibility. Recently, he recreated these images using Nicole Kidman in a feature in W magazine.
Between solo and group shows, he directed a cyberpunk movie Johnny Mnemonic and Keanu Reeves, written by William Gibson. This was 1992. Longo says he never wanted to work in Hollywood again. “After that I got lost. He had no money. My wife then said, ‘Go draw.’” The result was 366 drawings, one a day—it was a leap year—all titled. Magellan“which ironically became the vocabulary of everything that followed.”
Born in 1953 in Brooklyn, Longo grew up in television and movies. After seeing his classmate dead, shot by the police, “Kwakhanya.” He realized that the images we come across every day have weight, but you have to take them differently. “Drawing is the basis of everything. It’s about looking. My job is for the viewer to think about these images. There are effects of images on the psyche. “
Longo makes charcoal drawings. Working with one of the oldest methods, one used in cave paintings in Indonesia 35,400 years ago, is the perfect way to provide not only images of human-driven horrors but also beautiful images of the natural world. Coals are burned; it is ash. The remains of fire. And it’s dark. Longo paints on white paper, the only white paper he uses. Around his studio, I see jars labeled ‘dark black,’ ‘warm black,’ ‘cool black,’ ‘normal black,’ ‘medium black,’ ‘gray black.’ All these blacks began to create his works, which he called “the most cruel images with weak coals.” Each painting is hard work, it takes time and energy. I told him that I wanted to cry when I read his picture of the refugees and one of the old tree—I felt the effect. How was he able to do this work for decades without despair? “I feel like I have a moral obligation to do this. I don’t want to. I’m trying to change the fear.”
At the time of our interview, he had four different performances in three different countries. His work is in the collections of MoMA, Whitney, National Gallery of Art in DC, Tate in London, Center Pompidou in Paris and other important institutions. He is also an artist, and there is a rhythmic pulse in his paintings that he creates through his subtle use of all those different blacks. They are also politically charged, because of his anger and despair. “As St. Augustine said, ‘Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Ntutuko and Ntibe. Anger at the way things are, And the courage to see that they are not always as they are.'” Indeed, in order to do each work, Longo must muster a lot of courage to reach the end.
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At the Milwaukee Art Museum until February 23 there is an exhibition, “Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History,” with thirty-three paintings, three sculptures and two videos—a work by Margaret Andera that represents the last ten years of his career. Longo describes it as “the last ten years of consecutive horrors in American business, from Ferguson until now,” and adds, “Margaret has found the work, the emotional state and the mental stress that can take you. He is the closest to how my work should be presented. I’m very happy with it.”
Andera also found working with Longo to be rewarding: “Robert is great at working together and has an instinct for everything. I was impressed by his strong work breakdowns, and the impact they had on him. He lives with these images in a deep way. He really feels it in his heart.”
Some of these famous statues measure over 10 by 16 feet, others are as small as 8 by 12 feet. Each is mounted on an aluminum panel, with some pieces weighing up to 500 pounds. They are works that require you to slow down and take it all in: a Nascar crash, towering icebergs inspired by Greta Thunberg’s activism, three snow-white wedding dresses in a shop window in Ukraine shot with bullet holes, the majestic head of an eagle. You feel the energy required to make these drawings in your body.
“I chose the last ten years of his work on this show because I feel that this will be his legacy. He has achieved this over time,” Andera said. “There is nothing that cannot be solved for them. I didn’t want this to be a series but a complete show. In it, he asks us to stop and think. As a goalkeeper, I am learning from this game.”
Longo’s two-dimensional works are often referred to as paintings, but I keep referring to drawing as that best describes the way he does his work. The time it takes to get the shadows, the dimensions, the light, the movement—it’s like you’re seeing time in real time. It’s happening before your eyes. When you enter the room of his work, you may first think that the pictures are carefully rendered and beautiful. Nearby, there is shock. What Longo did is almost unbelievable. As Nietzsche wrote, “Be aware that… You feel the horror of these images. And beauty. They stop you.
