What do Goya, Eisenstein and Longo have in common: the artist’s guide to the exhibition at Garage. Pilots, sharks, nuclear explosions and much, much more

Robert Longo is sometimes called the creator of death. This New York artist covers topics in his works that other artists try to avoid.

Coal, a nuclear explosion and... sharks

Debris charcoal pencil and graphite Longo creates masterpieces that make you feel horrified - three-dimensional images of terrible tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear explosions. But these are not the artist’s works that are recognized as the most frightening and realistic.

Robert Longo draws sharks with charcoal.

Creepy monsters with open mouths, the powerful curves of shark bodies emerging from the blackness, foreshadowing the death of the jaw - all this fascinates and frightens.

Such terrifying paintings by the master are today in the most famous museum collections and private collections. For his works, Longo even received the legendary Goslar Kaiser Ring award - an alternative Oscar in modern art.

Robert Longo - artist of death

Robert Longo was born in Brooklyn in 1953. WITH early childhood the future "artist of death" was interested in art.

After Longo entered art academy in Texas, but abandoned it and entered the Buffalo College of Art, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. The shark portraitist began his career with sculpture, but then became interested in painting.

The artist’s first exhibition took place in 1980, however great fame didn't bring it. The next year was marked for the artist by the beginning of a new project and growing popularity.

In addition to his works of the apocalypse in the form of an atomic mushroom, the art master is also known for his directorial work “Johnny Mnemonic.”

The shark is the artist's best friend

Robert Longo calls sharks his best models. It was their images that became a sensation in 2007 at the exhibition "PERFECT GODS" - ideal Gods. Sharks, according to Longo, are great creations.

Fans of creativity very often ask the question: why does the author create such “deadly” paintings? Why not landscapes, not portraits? The artist answers briefly: “I paint reality.”

One famous psychiatrist once suggested that Longo had obsessive-compulsive disorder or “fearful thoughts syndrome.”

Robert Longo, according to the doctor, as a result of severe psychological trauma suffered in childhood, suffers from obsessive thoughts and fears of dying from the elements or from the teeth of a huge shark.

The artist resolutely rejected these assumptions, but confirmed that as a child he actually witnessed a big car accident, when a school bus collided with a car in Brooklyn.

In addition, Robert Longo does not deny that by nature he is a pessimist and “a terrible melancholic who loves to leaf through graphic comics or watch BBC News reports of tragic explosions.”

It is also known that the artist is terrified large quantity water and has an incomprehensible interest in photographs of people tormented after shark attacks. That’s why the sharks in Longo’s paintings look so realistic.

There is something in common between sharks, hurricanes and nuclear explosions, the artist assures. “All of these things are unexpected, all of them are amazingly beautiful, and all of them do not bode well.

And these words are full of truth.

Robert Longo(English) Robert Longo , r. 1953) - modern American artist, known for his work in various genres.

Biography

Robert Longo born January 7, 1953 in Brooklyn (New York), USA. He studied at the University of North Texas (Denton), but dropped out. Later he studied sculpture under the guidance of Leonda Finke. In 1972 he received a grant to study at the Academy fine arts in Florence and left for Italy. After returning to the United States, he attended Buffalo State College, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1975. At the same time, he met with photographer Cindy Sherman.

In the late 70s, Robert Longo became interested in organizing performances (for example, Sound Distance of a Good Man). Such works were usually accompanied by the creation of a series of photographs and videos, which were then shown as individual works and parts of installations. At the same time, Longo played in a number of New York punk rock bands and even co-founded the Hallwalls gallery. In 1979-81 the artist also worked on a series of graphic works "People in Cities".

In 1987, Longo presented a series of conceptual sculptures called Object Ghosts. The works from this series are an attempt to rethink and stylize objects from science fiction films (for example, “Nostromo” - that was the name of the ship in the film Alien). A similar idea (but implemented with real props that were used on film set) can be found in the works of Dora Budor.

In 1988, Longo began work on the Black Flag series. The first work in the series was a US flag painted in graphite and visually similar to a painted wooden box. Subsequent works were sculptural images of the US flag made of bronze, each of which was accompanied by a title-signature (for example, “give us back our suffering” - “give us back our suffering”).

In the late 80s, Robert Longo also began filming short films(for example, Arena Brains - "Smart Guys in the Arena", 1987). In 1995, Longo acted as director in the science fiction film Johnny Mnemonic. The film is considered a cult film for the cyberpunk genre. Main role performed by Keanu Reeves.

In the 90s and 2000s, Robert Longo continued to create his hyperrealistic images. Works from the series Superheroes (1998) or Ophelia (2002) look like photographs or sculptures, but are ink paintings. The paintings from the series Balcony (2008-09) and The Mysteries (2009) are written in charcoal.

In 2010, Robert Longo created a series of photographs in the style of “People in Cities” for the Italian brand Bottega Veneta.

In 2016-17 At the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, the exhibition “Testimonies” was held, during which some of the works of Robert Longo were shown to the public.

Robert Longo currently lives in New York, USA. Since 1994, he has been married to German actress Barbara Sukowa. The couple has three children.

Robert Longo was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island. As a child I looked at him great influence influenced by popular culture - cinema, television, magazines and comics, which largely shaped his artistic style.

In the late 1970s, Longo performed experimental punk music in New York rock clubs in the project “Menthol Wars” (Robert Longo’s Menthol Wars). He is a co-founder of the avant-garde group X-Patsys (together with his wife Barbara Zukova, Jon Kessler, Knox Chandler, Sean Conley, Jonathan Kane and Anthony Coleman).

During the 1980s, Longo directed several music videos, including R.E.M.'s "The One I Love." , Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order and Peace Sells by Megadeth .

In 1992, the artist directed one of the episodes of the series “Tales from the Crypt” entitled “This’ll Kill Ya”. The most famous of director's works Longo - 1995 film

Chief curator of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Kate Fowle and Robert Longo

Robert Longo,

with whom Posta-Magazine met at the installation of the exhibition, spoke about what is hidden under the colorful layer of Rembrandt’s paintings, the power of the image, as well as “primitive” and “high” in art.

Looking at Robert Longo's hyper-realistic graphics, it's hard to believe that these are not photographs. And yet it is so: monumental images modern city, nature or disasters are drawn with charcoal on paper. They are almost tactile - so elaborate and detailed - and for a long time they attract attention with their epic scale.

Longo has a quiet but confident voice. After listening to the question, he thinks for a second, and then speaks - confidentially, as with an old acquaintance. Complex abstract categories in his story gain clarity and even seem physical fitness. And by the end of our conversation, I understand why.

Inna Logunova: Having looked at the mounted part of the exhibition, I was impressed by the monumentality of your images. It’s amazing how modern and archetypal they are at the same time. Is your goal as an artist to capture the essence of time?

Robert Longo: We, artists, are reporters of the time in which we live. Nobody pays me - neither the government nor the church, I can rightfully say: my work is how I see the world around me. If we take any example from the history of art, say, paintings by Rembrandt or Caravaggio, we will see in them a cast of life - as it was in that era. I think this is what is really important. Because in a sense, art is a religion, a way of separating our ideas about things from theirs. real essence, from what they actually are. This is his enormous strength. As an artist, I’m not selling you anything, I’m not talking about Christ or politics - I’m just trying to understand something about life, asking questions that make the viewer think and doubt some generally accepted truths.

And the image, by definition, is archetypal; the mechanism of its influence is connected with our deepest foundations. I draw with charcoal - the oldest material prehistoric man. The irony is that at this exhibition, technologically, my works are the most primitive. Goya worked in complex, until now modern technology etching, Eisenstein made films, and I just draw with charcoal.

That is, you use primitive material to bring out some ancient principle?

Yes, I have always been interested in the collective unconscious. At one time I was simply obsessed with the idea of ​​finding and capturing his images and, in order to get somehow closer to this, I made a drawing every day. I am American, my wife is European, she was formed in a different visual culture, and it was she who helped me understand how much I myself am a product of the image system of my society. We consume these images every day without even realizing that they are part of our flesh and blood. For me, the process of drawing itself is a way to realize what of all this visual noise is really yours, and what is imposed from the outside. Actually, a drawing, in principle, is an imprint of the unconscious - almost everyone draws something while talking on the phone or thinking. Therefore, both Goya and Eisenstein are represented in the exhibition with drawings.

Where did you get this one from? special interest to the works of Goya and Eisenstein?

In my youth, I constantly drew something, made sculptures, but I did not have the courage to consider myself an artist, and I did not see myself in this capacity. I was tossed from side to side: I wanted to be a biologist, a musician, or an athlete. In general, I had certain inclinations in each of these areas, but in fact the only thing I was really good at was art. I thought that I could find myself in art history or restoration - and went to study in Europe (at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence - author's note), where I watched and studied the old masters a lot and enthusiastically. And at a certain moment, something seemed to click in me: enough, I want to answer them with something of my own.

I first saw Goya’s paintings and etchings in 1972, and they struck me with their cinematic quality. After all, I grew up watching television and cinema, my perception was predominantly visual - in my youth I hardly even read, books came into my life after thirty. Moreover, it was black and white television - and the images of Goya connected in my mind with my own past, my memories. I was also impressed by the strong political component of his work. After all, I belong to a generation for which politics is part of life. Before my eyes, he was shot dead during student protests close friend. Politics became a stumbling block in our family: my parents were staunch conservatives, and I was a liberal.

As for Eisenstein, I always admired the thoughtfulness of his images and his masterful camera work. He influenced me a lot. In the 1980s, I constantly turned to his theory of montage. Back then I was especially interested in collage: how the combination or collision of two elements gives rise to something completely new. Let's say, cars crashing into each other are no longer two material objects, but something third - a car accident.

Goya was political artist. Is your art political?

It's not that I was deeply involved in politics, but certain situations in life forced me to take political position. So, in high school I was by and large I was only interested in girls, sports and rock and roll. And then the police shot my friend - and I couldn't stand by any longer. I felt an internal need to talk about it, or rather, to show it - but not so much through the events themselves, but rather through their consequences, slowing them down and enlarging them.

And today the main thing for me is to stop the flow of images, the number of which is constantly increasing. They pass before our eyes with incredible speed and therefore lose all meaning. I feel like I have to stop them, fill them with content. After all, the perception of art differs from an everyday, sliding glance at things - it requires concentration and therefore makes you stop.

Was it your idea to combine Robert Longo, Francisco Goya and Sergei Eisenstein in one exhibition?

Of course not. Goya and Eisenstein are titans and geniuses, I don’t even pretend to be next to them. The idea belonged to Kate (Kate Fowle, chief curator of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and curator of the exhibition - author's note), who wanted to stage my work recent years into some context. At first I was very confused by her idea. But she said: “Try to look at them as friends, not sacred monsters, and establish a dialogue with them.” When I finally decided, another difficulty arose: it was clear that we would not be able to bring Goya from Spain. But then I saw Eisenstein’s graphics and remembered Goya’s etchings that so impressed me in my youth - and then I realized what the three of us had in common: drawing. And black and white. And we began to work in this direction. I selected Eisenstein's drawings, and Kate's Goya's etchings. She figured out how to organize the exhibition space - to be honest, I myself felt a little lost when I saw it, I didn’t understand at all how to work with it.

Among the works presented at the exhibition are two works based on X-ray photographs of Rembrandt’s paintings “Head of Christ” and “Bathsheba”. What special truth were you looking for inside these paintings? What did you find?

Several years ago, an exhibition entitled “Rembrandt and the Faces of Christ” was held in Philadelphia. Finding myself among these paintings, I suddenly realized: this is what the invisible looks like - after all, religion, in essence, is based on belief in the invisible. I asked a restoration artist friend of mine to show me X-rays of other Rembrandt paintings. And this feeling - that you see the invisible - only strengthened. Because the X-ray images depicted himself creative process. What’s interesting: while working on the image of Jesus, Rembrandt painted a whole series of portraits of local Jews, but in the end the face of Christ is devoid of Semitic features - he is still a European. And on an x-ray, where more early versions image, he generally looks Arab.

In “Bathsheba” I was occupied by another point. Rembrandt depicted her resigned to her fate: she is forced to share a bed with King David, who desired her, and thereby save her husband, who, if she refuses, he will immediately send to war to certain death. The x-ray shows that initially Bathsheba has a completely different expression on her face, as if she is even looking forward to the night with David. All this is incredibly interesting and excites the imagination.

And if your work were x-rayed, what would we see in these photographs?

I was quite angry when I was young - I am still angry now, but less so. Under my drawings I wrote terrible things: whom I hated, whose death I wished. Fortunately, as an art critic friend told me, charcoal drawings are usually not X-rayed.

And if we talk about the outer layer, people who don’t look closely at my works mistake them for photographs. But the closer they get to them, the more lost they become: this is neither traditional figurative painting nor modernist abstraction, but something in between. Being extremely detailed, my drawings always remain shaky and a little unfinished, which is why they could never be photographs.

What is primary for you as an artist - form or content, idea?

I was influenced by conceptual artists, they were my heroes. And for them the idea is paramount. It is impossible to ignore the form, but the idea is extremely important. Since art ceased to serve the church and the state, the artist again and again must answer the question for himself - what the hell am I doing? In the 1970s, I was painfully searching for a form in which I could work. I could choose any: conceptual artists and minimalists deconstructed everything possible ways creating art. Anything could be art. My generation was engaged in the appropriation of images; images of images became our material. I took photos and videos, staged performances, made sculptures. Over time, I realized that drawing is somewhere between “high” art - sculpture and painting - and something completely marginal, even despised. And I thought: what if we take and enlarge the drawing to the scale of a large canvas, turn it into something grandiose, like a sculpture? My drawings have weight, they physically interact with the space and the viewer. On the one hand, these are the most perfect abstractions, on the other, the world in which I live.

Robert Longo and Kate Fowle in Russian state archive
literature and art

Details from Posta-Magazine
The exhibition is open from September 30 to February 5
Museum of Contemporary Art "Garage", st. Krymsky Val, 9, p. 32
About other projects of the season: http://garagemca.org/

Eisenstein was supposed to work for the government, Goya for the king. I work for the art market. Throughout the history of art, there has been a specific client, the church or the government. It is interesting that as soon as institutions ceased to be the main customers, artists began to have new problem searching for what they want to depict on canvas. Unlike the king, the art market does not dictate what exactly we need to do, so I am freer than the artists who came before me.

Goya did not create etchings for the church or kings, so they are much closer to what I do. In the case of Eisenstein we tried we tried to remove most of political context, we slowed down the footage, leaving only images - this is how we tried to get away from politics. When I was a student, I never thought about political background, about the repression, about the pressure that went hand in hand with the making of these films. But the more I studied Eisenstein, the more I realized that he simply wanted to make films - and for this, alas, he was forced to seek government support.

When Caravaggio found himself in Rome, he had to work for the church. Otherwise, he simply would not have had the opportunity to paint large paintings. As a result, he was forced to retell the same stories over and over again. It's funny how similar it is to a popular Hollywood movie. So we have much more in common with the artists of the past than we used to think, and their influence on each other is difficult to overestimate. Eisenstein himself studied Goya's work and even created paintings that look like storyboards - here are six of them, all together they actually look like storyboards for a movie. And the etchings are even numbered.

One way or another, all artists are connected and influenced by each other. The history of art is a great weapon that helps us cope with the challenges of each new day. And personally, I also use art to get there - this is my time machine.

Francisco Goya, "The Tragic Case of a Bull Attacking the Spectators in the Madrid Arena"

Series "Tauromachy", sheet 21

We learned that the Museum of the Revolution in Moscow holds a complete set of Goya's etchings. It was a gift from the USSR in 1937 as a token of gratitude for helping the Spaniards fight Franco. The etchings are simply unique: the last copy was made from Goya's original plates and all of them - which is simply amazing - look as if they were printed yesterday. At the exhibition we tried to avoid the most famous works- I just think that people will look at unfamiliar works a little longer. We also chose those that I think look almost like a film or journalism.

I even have one etching by Goya at home, I bought it a long time ago. And of those presented at the exhibition, my favorite is the one with the bull. The work looks exactly like a still from a movie - everything somehow works together cinematically, the bull with the tail and the people it seems to crash into. When I look at this work, I always think about what happened before and what will happen after this moment. Just like in the movies.

Francisco Goya, "Amazing Folly"

Series “Proverbs”, sheet 3

Here is another work that I really like - Goya’s family stands in a row, as if birds are sitting on a tree branch. I myself have three sons, and this engraving reminds me of family, there is something beautiful and important about it.

When I paint, I really often think about what will happen later to the characters in my painting. I often do a frame exercise, like in a comic strip, where I sketch out a lot of rectangles. different sizes and experimenting with the composition inside. And Eisenstein in this sense is an excellent example to follow, his compositions are impeccable: the picture is often built around a diagonal and such a structure creates psychological tension.

Sergei Eisenstein and Grigory Alexandrov, frame from the film “Battleship Potemkin”

I love all of Eisenstein’s films, and from Potemkin I remember first of all this beautiful scene with boats in the harbor. The water glistens and it makes the shot incredibly beautiful. And my most favorite shot is probably the one with the big flag and Lenin screaming. Both of these shots are truly masterpieces of sorts.

Sergei Eisenstein, still from the film “Sentimental Romance”

In the film " Sentimental romance“There is a shot that is incredible in its power: a woman is standing in an apartment by the window. It really looks like a painting.

And I’m also very interested in seeing what happened when we placed these films side by side - in the cinema you watch scene by scene, but here you see slow-motion images different films located nearby. This strange collage, it seems to me, makes it clear how Eisenstein's brain works. In his films, the cameras did not move behind the actors, they were static, and each time he offers us clearly constructed, specific images. Eisenstein worked at the dawn of cinema, and each frame had to be imagined in advance - actually seen future movie image after image.

Cinema, painting and contemporary art the essence is the same: creating paintings. The other day I was in a museum, looking for the Black Square, and while walking through all these halls of images and paintings, I realized something important. Main strength art is the burning desire of a human being to explain to you what exactly it sees. “This is how I see,” the artist tells us. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes it may seem to you that the crown of a tree resembles a face, and you immediately want to tell your friend about it, ask him: “Do you see what I see?” Making art is an attempt to show people how you see the world. And at the heart of this is the desire to feel alive.

Robert Longo, untitled, 2016

(The plot is related to the tragic events in Baltimore. - Note ed.)

I chose this image to show not only what happened, but also to explain to you how I see and feel about it. At the same time, of course, it was necessary to create an image that the viewer would want to look at. And I also think that you may not read the newspapers and not know about what happened, but this is wrong - it is important to see everything.

I love the painting (a painting by Théodore Gericault, painted in 1819, based on the shipwreck of a frigate off the coast of Senegal. - Note ed.) - for me this is a truly amazing work about terrible disaster. Do you remember what it was? Of the 150 people on the raft, only 15 survived. I also try to show the beauty of disasters, and a great example is the bullet holes in my paintings.

I am far from politics, and ideally I would like to be able to live my life and just know that people are not suffering. But I do what I have to do - and show what I have to show.

I think both of these artists were in similar situation. It is a pity that the deep ideas of Eisenstein's films were distorted. It's similar to the situation in America: the idea of ​​democracy, which lies at the heart of our country, has been constantly distorted. Goya also witnessed terrible events, and he wanted to make us look at things realistically, as if to stop what was happening. He talks about slowing down the world and perception. I think I also deliberately slow things down with my images. You can turn on your computer and quickly look through thousands of images on the Internet, but I want to create them in a way that stops time and allows you to look at things more closely. To do this, in one work I can combine several images, as in classical art, and this idea of ​​connecting the unconscious is incredibly important to me.

Robert Longo, untitled

January 5, 2015 (the work is a tribute to the memory of the editors of Charlie Hebdo. - Note ed.)

This topic was extremely important for me, because I am an artist myself. Hebdo is a magazine where cartoonists, that is, artists, worked. What happened really shocked me: each of us could have been among those people who were killed. This is not just an attack on Hebdo - it is an attack on all artists. What the terrorists wanted to say was: you shouldn't make pictures like this, so this threat actually concerns me.

I chose cracked glass as the basis for the image. First of all, it's beautiful - you'll want to look at it anyway. But that's not the only reason: it reminded me of a jellyfish, some kind of organic creature. Hundreds of cracks radiate from the hole in the glass, like an echo. terrible event which happened. The event is in the past, but its consequences continue. It's really scary.

Robert Longo, untitled

2015 (the work is dedicated to the September 11 disaster. - Note ed.)

On September 11th, I was playing basketball in one of the gyms in Brooklyn, on the 10th floor. tall building, and I could see everything perfectly from the window. And my studio is located not far from the site of the tragedy, so I couldn’t get there for a long time. In my studio there is big picture, created in honor of this terrible event - at first I just sketched a drawing on the wall of the studio and drew an airplane. The same plane that flew into the first tower, I painted it on the wall. Then I had to repaint the studio walls, and I was very worried that the drawing would disappear, so I made another one. Please note that all my drawings in the exhibition are covered with glass - and as a result you see your reflections in them. Planes crash into reflections, and parts of some of my works are reflected in each other. There are certain angles in the exhibit where you can see a bullet hole in Jesus from a certain angle, and here you see a plane crashing into something.

For me, overlaying drawings on top of each other is not just a chronology of disasters, but rather an attempt to heal. Sometimes we take poison to get better and it is important to have the courage to live with with open eyes, be courageous to see some things. I myself am probably not very courageous man- all men like to think that they are brave, but most of them, it seems to me, are cowards.

I'm lucky to have the opportunity to exhibit, and I use this opportunity to talk about what I think is important. There is no need to create something mysterious, complex, full of narcissism. Instead, it is better to address the issues that matter now. This is what I think about the real tasks of art.