In the background of serial killer Patrick Bateman’s New York City apartment, two charcoal drawings of office workers loom over his living room. Both figures are dressed in sleek business attire and are contorted into dramatic—almost psychotic—poses. Throughout American Psycho, they are the silent witnesses to Bateman’s acts of depravity.
These larger-than-life drawings are the works of Robert Longo, a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in New York. Drawn from his famous Men in the Cities series, the drawings stand as a critique of the lives of urban professionals and the existential struggles of corporate America. It was the series that launched Longo to cultural prominence in the early 1980s, but its themes remain relevant across decades: in the 2000s in American Psycho and even today.
Educated in both Florence and New York, he rose to fame alongside artists Cindy Sherman, David Salle and Richard Prince as part of the Pictures Generation. Their work primarily investigates pop culture and images in a society shaped by mass media and consumerism. Aside from his endeavours in filmmaking, experimental music and installation art, Longo is most well-known for his large-scale hyperrealistic charcoal pieces, which the artist reproduces from politicised and contemporary photography.
In a 2019 exhibition titled Amerika, Longo takes explicit jabs at then and current President Donald Trump. In Untitled (White House), the eponymous White House is shrouded in darkness and foliage, alluding to the curse that envelopes Sleeping Beauty’s castle in the fairy tale. Enough said.
Longo’s use of popular and accessible imagery is central to his ethos. “My way of being avant-garde is to have 30 million people think I’m avant-garde, not just a bunch at some arty cocktail party,” he once said. In shunning boutique intellectual fame, he embraced and was embraced by popular culture.
While his drawings may seem like loyal reproductions of photographs (or of iconic American paintings in the case of his 2014 exhibition Gang of Cosmos), Longo notes that he creates translations, not recreations. Within the monochromatic palette of light and shadow, Longo employs a carefully curated chiaroscuro to create a series of dramatic, high-octane, and highly sensitised works.
In the digital age, Longo believes that our exposure to an oversaturation of images, crises, and horrors has dulled our senses and reduced our empathy. He makes these dramatic pieces, in part, to shock the viewer into feeling. In terms of subject matter, his works leave few stones unturned—recent pieces include a bisected Supreme Court, riot police in Ukraine, refugees on a raft—and leave no doubts about the artist’s political views.
Longo’s most recent exhibition, The Weight of Hope, is currently on view at Pace Gallery in New York. Despite birthing generations of creatives—including Longo himself—the city’s contemporary art galleries have recently been on the rocks. A slew of gallery closures over the past few years suggests an industry in crisis, since even its most influential players have been hit, including Tim Blum’s BLUM Gallery, which recently closed after three decades in operation.
Critics suggest that rising rent prices, the shift towards art fairs, and the shrinking global art trade are all factors that have led to these closures. Above all, there is a tacit understanding that art has become too expensive. An investigation by Cultured Magazine found that despite the pandemic and its recession, price inflation has plagued the contemporary art industry, as artworks that “used to cost $25,000 [pre-pandemic] are now $200,000.”
In an increasingly politicised climate, Longo’s art is a necessary and grounding reminder that art is meant to interact with the viewer— not wear obscene price tags. In a recent interview for his exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Longo spoke about his responsibilities as an artist. “As artists, we’re reporters. Our job is to report what it’s like to be alive now. We’re one of the few professions left in the world that has the opportunity to try to tell the truth.” Unlike institutions and corporations, Longo notes that artists are free of sponsorship. His utmost obligation is to the truth.
“cover-longo-riot-cops” by p0ps Harlow is licensed under CC BY 2.0.