Although Robert Longo has worked with all manner of media throughout his career, from film and photography to painting and sculpture, it is the artist’s large-scale charcoal drawings that have garnered the most attention. These hyperrealist drawings, heavy with chiaroscuro, often recreate photographs of high-profile socio-political events or catastrophes – a plume of smoke emitting from Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945; the destroyed landscape left behind after a clash between Ukrainian and Russian military forces. Many of these works are now on display in a major show at the Albertina in Vienna, which explores how the artist engages with the theme of power and its manifestation in politics, history and the natural world (4 September–26 January 2025).
Find out more from the Albertina’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary
Untitled (Nagasaki, B) (2003), Robert Longo. Weishaupt Collection, Ulm. Photo: Robert Longo Studio; © the artist/Bildrecht, Vienna 2024
Untitled (Ukranian and Russian Tank Battle) (2023), Robert Longo. Weishaupt Collection, Ulm. Photo: Robert Longo Studio; © the artist/Bildrecht, Vienna 2024
Untitled (White Tiger) (2011), Robert Longo. Private collection, Basel. Photo: Robert Longo Studio; © the artist/Bildrecht, Vienna 2024