ROBERT LONGO
(1953 - )
Robert Longo was born in 1953 in Brooklyn,
New York. He was raised on suburban Long Island where as a youth
he participated in various arts activities from a very young
age. Longo developed an early fascination with all forms of mass
media; especially movies, television, magazines, and comic books.
These hallmark influences are still incorporated into the art
work that he is producing today.
Robert Longo's works are filled with deep
emotions that are both primitive and at the same time self-conscious.
One of the quintessential artists of the 1980s, Longo's "Men
in the Cities" series portrays a group of sharply dressed
businessmen writhing in contorted agony.
Robert Longo's art training and background
are very diverse. His higher education began at the University
of Northern Texas, in the rural town of Denton. Like so many
other creative and ingenious people, Longo excelled in several
different art forms. After a break from university life, Longo
began studying sculpture under the guidance of Leonda Finke,
who encouraged the young artist to pursue a career in the visual
arts. In 1972, Longo received a grant to study at the Accademia
di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. Upon his return to New York,
Longo enrolled at the State University College in Buffalo where
he received a BFA in 1975. In college, Longo and a group of his
friends established an avant-garde art gallery in their co-op
building, which was originally a converted ice factory. Through
his gallery efforts, Longo was introduced to many local and New
York City artists. Eventually Longo moved to New York City and
immersed himself in the underground art scene of the seventies.
Although he studied sculpture, drawing
remained Longo's favorite form of self- expression. However,
the sculptural influence pervades his drawing technique,
as Longo's "portraits" have a distinctive chiseled
line that seems to give the drawings a three dimensional quality,
Longo uses graphite like clay. He molds it
to create images like the writhing, dancing figures in his seminal
'Men in the Cities" series.
The artist has been the subject of major
retrospective exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art in 1989 and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago
in 1990. Well into the next century, Longo will continue to be
one of the most highly regarded living contemporary artists and
print makers working in the international art market.
In order to create works such as Barbara
and Ralph, Longo first projects photographs of his subjects onto
paper and traces the figures in graphite, stripping away all
details of the background. After he records the basic contours,
his assistant, Diane Shea, continues work on the figure for about
a week, filling in the details. Next, Longo goes back into the
drawing, using a combination of graphite and charcoal, to provide
as he says, "all the cosmetic work." At this point,
he makes a number of changes in the figure. Some are subtle:
just a little more definition to a shoulder, perhaps, or a darker
cast to the shoes. Others are radical: a subject, who in the
original photo was wearing jeans, may finally sport a pair of
formal black trousers in the drawing. Longo continues to work
on the drawing making numerous adjustments until, about a week
later, it is completed.
The process of making a lithograph is equally
involved. Studio assistants do much of the basic work. Though
his use of assistants has on occasion been controversial, the
practice has several precedents, from the old masters with their
workshop minions to the minimalists whose creations involve the
talents of industrial fabricators.
Few artists have enjoyed the international
visibility of Robert Longo and fewer still have generated as
much thought -provoking commentary about their own art and about
the state of contemporary culture at large. His original art
is immediately recognizable by many who have seen only few examples
of it.
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