Born: 1953

Hometown: Brooklyn, NY

Lives and Works: New York, NY

Website: http://www.robertlongo.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-Longo/341106745796

Education: BFA, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY, 1975

About The Artist

Robert Longo is a Brooklyn-based artist, filmmaker, and musician known for his photo-realistic drawings and works on paper which examine the role of politics and power in our society. Deeply influenced by sculpture, his drawings—which are marked by chiseled lines—almost seem three-dimensional, as if they could pop off the page and enter physical space at any time.

Recognized at a young age for his talent, Longo received a grant to study at the Accademia di Belle Arte in Florence, Italy, in 1972. Upon his return to the States, he enrolled in Buffalo State University, where he studied along with fellow-student Cindy Sherman. After his graduation in 1975, Longo moved to New York City to become part of the infamous downtown art and music scene. In the 1980s, he became well known for his Men in the Cities series, which depicts sharply dressed businessmen (and a few women) writhing in contorted agony or ecstasy (depending on your reading), and silhouetted against a stark white background like dancers in a sound studio. He continued working on series after series, one in which he created 366 drawings (one per day) that documented his life and absorption of outside images.

Longo’s work has been exhibited at numerous major international venues, and his performances and set designs have appeared around the world. He was the subject of retrospectives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; and Museum Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal. A participant in both the Whitney Biennial and the Venice Biennale, as well as at recent group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York, Longo’s work has received numerous reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Interview, Art in America, Forbes, and New York Magazine.

Galleries

Metro Pictures Gallery, New York, NY

Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf, Germany

Select Permanent Collections

The Albertina, Vienna, Austria

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

Eli Broad Family Foundation, Los Angeles, CA

Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY

High Museum, Atlanta, GA

The Jewish Museum, New York, NY

Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany

Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Ludwig-Forum fur Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany

Menil Collection, Houston, TX

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada

Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada

Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice, France

Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

Power Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Sydney, Australia

Saatchi Collection, London, England

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Tate Gallery, London, England

Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

The Whitney Musem of American Art, New York, NY