Chief Curator of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Kate Fowl and Robert Longo
Robert Longo
whom Posta-Magazine met during 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 these aren't photographs. And yet it is so: the monumental images of the modern city, nature or catastrophes are drawn in charcoal on paper. They are almost tactile - so elaborate and detailed - and for a long time 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 seemingly physical form. 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 is 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 times we live in. No one pays me - neither the government nor the church, I can rightly say: my work is how I see the world around me. If we take any example from the history of art, say, the paintings of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, we will see on them a cast of life - such as it was in that era. I think this is what really matters. Because in a sense, art is a religion, a way to separate our ideas about things from their real essence, from what they really are. This is his great strength. As an artist, I don’t sell anything to you, I don’t talk about Christ or politics - I just try to understand something about life, I ask questions that make the viewer think, doubt certain 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 of prehistoric man. The irony is that at this exhibition, technologically, my works are the most primitive. Goya worked in a complex, still modern etching technique, Eisenstein made films, and I just paint with charcoal.
That is, you use primitive material to pull 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 somehow get 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, the 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 presented at the exhibition, including drawings.
Where did you get this particular interest in the work of Goya and Eisenstein?
In my youth, I was constantly drawing something, making sculptures, but I did not have the courage to consider myself an artist, and I did not see myself in this capacity. I was thrown from side to side: I wanted to be either a biologist, or a musician, or an athlete. In general, I had certain makings in each of these areas, but in fact the only thing I really had abilities in was art. I thought that I could find myself in the history of art or restoration - and went to study in Europe (at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. - Approx. Aut.), where I watched and studied 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 on television and cinema, my perception was predominantly visual - in my youth I didn’t even read almost, books entered 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. A close friend was shot dead in front of me during student protests. Politics became a stumbling block in our family: my parents were staunch conservatives, and I was a liberal.
As for Eisenstein, I have always admired the thoughtfulness of his images, the virtuoso work of the camera. He influenced me a lot. In the 1980s, I constantly referred to his theory of montage. At that time, I was especially interested in collage: how the connection or collision of two elements gives rise to something completely new. For example, cars crashing into each other are no longer two material objects, but something third - a car accident.
Goya was a political artist. Is your art political?
Not that I was deeply involved in politics, but certain situations in life forced me to take a political position. So, in high school, by and large, I was only interested in girls, sports and rock and roll. And then the cops shot my friend and I couldn't stay away anymore. I felt an inner need to tell about it, or rather, to show it - but not so much through the events themselves, as their consequences, slowing 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 that I must stop them, fill them with content. After all, the perception of art is different from the everyday, sliding look 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 belongs to Kate (Keith Fowl, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art's chief curator and exhibition curator. - Author's note), who wanted to put my work of recent years in some context. At first, her idea confused me a lot. But she said: "Try to look at them as friends, not sacred monsters, to establish a dialogue with them." When I did decide, 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 impressed me so much in my youth - and then I realized that the three of us have in common: drawing. And black and white. And we began to work in this direction. I selected drawings by Eisenstein, and Kate etchings by Goya. She also figured out how to organize the exhibition space - I myself, to be honest, felt a little lost when I saw it, I did not understand at all how to work with it.
Among the works presented at the exhibition there are two works based on X-rays of Rembrandt's paintings Head of Christ and Bathsheba. What special truth were you looking for inside these canvases? What did they discover?
A few years ago in Philadelphia there was an exhibition "Rembrandt and the faces of Christ." Once among these canvases, I suddenly realized: this is what the invisible looks like - after all, religion, in fact, is based on faith in the invisible. I asked an art restorer friend of mine to show me x-rays of other Rembrandt paintings. And this feeling - that you see the invisible - only strengthened. Because X-ray images capture the creative process itself. What is 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 x-rays, where earlier versions of the image are visible, he generally looks like an Arab.
In "Bathsheba" I was occupied with another moment. Rembrandt portrayed her as resigned to fate: she is forced to share the 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 waiting for the night with David. All this is amazingly interesting and excites the imagination.
And if your work were x-rayed, what would we see in these pictures?
When I was young, I was pretty angry - I'm still angry now, but less so. Under my drawings, I wrote terrible things: whom I hated, whose death I wished. Fortunately, as an art historian friend told me, charcoal drawings usually do not show through X-rays.
And if we talk about the outer layer - people who do not look closely at my work, take them for photographs. But the closer they get to them, the more they get lost: this is not a traditional figurative painting, and not a modernist abstraction, but something in between. Being extremely detailed, my drawings always remain shaky and a bit unfinished, which is why they could under no circumstances be photographs.
What is primary for you as an artist - form or content, idea?
I was formed under the influence of 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 has ceased to serve the church and the state, the artist has to answer the question to himself again and again - what the hell am I doing? In the 1970s, I was agonizingly looking for a form in which I could work. I could choose any: conceptual artists and minimalists deconstructed all possible ways of 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 hand, the world in which I live.
Robert Longo and Kate Fowl at the Russian State Archives
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, building 32
About other projects of the season: http://garagemca.org/
Robert Longo was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Long Island. As a child, he was greatly influenced by popular culture—film, television, magazines, and comics—which largely shaped his artistic style.
In the late 1970s, Longo performed experimental punk music in New York City rock clubs for Robert Longo's Menthol Wars. He is a co-founder of the avant-garde group X-Patsys (with his wife Barbara Zukova, Jon Kessler, Knox Chandler, Sean Conley, Jonathan Kane and Anthony Coleman).
In the 1980s, Longo directed several music videos, including the song The One I Love by R.E.M. , Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order and Peace Sells by Megadeth.
In 1992, the artist acted as the director of one of the episodes of the series "Tales from the Crypt" called "This will kill you" (This'll Kill Ya). Longo's most famous directorial work is the 1995 film
Robert Longo is sometimes called the creator of death. This New York artist covers themes in his works that other masters try to avoid.
Coal, nuclear explosion and ... sharks
With fragments of a charcoal pencil and graphite, Longo creates masterpieces that make you horrified - three-dimensional images of terrible tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear explosions. But not these works of the artist are recognized as the most frightening and realistic.
Robert Longo draws sharks in charcoal.
Creepy monsters with open mouths, powerful curves of shark bodies emerging from the blackness, foreshadowing the death of the jaw with - all this fascinates and frightens.
Similar frightening paintings by the master today are 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 contemporary art.
Robert Longo - artist of death
Robert Longo was born in Brooklyn in 1953. From early childhood, the future "artist of death" was interested in art.
After Longo entered the art academy in Texas, however, he left it, and entered the Buffalo Art College, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. The portrait painter of sharks began his career with sculpture, but after that he became interested in painting.
The first exhibition of the artist took place in 1980, but did not bring much fame. 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 directing Johnny Mnemonic.
Shark is an artist's best friend
Robert Longo calls sharks his best sitters. 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 themselves: why does the author create such "deadly" paintings? Why not landscapes, not portraits? The artist answers briefly: "I paint reality."
One of the famous psychiatrists once suggested that Longo has an obsessive-compulsive disorder or a "syndrome of terrible thoughts."
Robert Longo, according to the doctor, as a result of a 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 strongly rejected these assumptions, but confirmed that in childhood he really witnessed a big car accident when a school bus collided with a passenger car in Brooklyn.
In addition, Robert Longo does not deny that by nature he is a pessimist and "terrible melancholic who loves to flip through comics with pictures or watch BBC News reports about tragic explosions."
It is also known that the artist is terrified of a large amount of water and has an incomprehensible interest in photographs of people tormented after shark attacks. Therefore, the sharks on the canvases of Longo look so realistic.
There is something in common between sharks, hurricanes and nuclear explosions, says the artist. - All these things are unexpected, all are delightfully beautiful and all do not bode well.
And these words are full of truth.
Robert is known to a wide audience as the director of the cult film "Johnny Mnemonic" based on the story of cyberpunk father William Gibson. But he is also an excellent artist - and opens two exhibitions in the capital at once. The Evidence project at Garage is dedicated to the work of three authors — Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein and Longo himself, who, as a co-curator, links this multi-layered story together. And in the gallery "Triumph" will show the works of artists from his studio.
GUSKOV: Robert, Eisenstein and Goya and your works will be in the Garage. How did you put it all together?
LONGO (laughs): Well, that's what museums are for, to show different things together. (Seriously.) In fact, the idea of the exhibition belongs to Kate Fowl, she is the curator. She knew that these two authors had a strong influence on me as an artist. Kate and I talked about them more than once, she understood what was happening, and two years ago she offered me this story.
GUSKOV: What do you all have in common?
LONGO: First of all, we are all witnesses of the time in which we live or lived, and this is very important.
GUSKOV: Are you an equal participant in this story with Eisenstein and Goya?
LONGO: No, Kate gave me the opportunity to influence the exhibition. Usually the artists are not included in the project: the curators just take your works and tell you what to do. And here I came to Russia twice, studied archives, museum collections.
GUSKOV: What do you think of Garage?
LONGO (admiringly): This is a very unusual place. I wish there was something similar in the States. What Kate Fowl and Dasha do in Garage (Zhukova. - Interview), just amazing. As for the exhibition, Eisenstein and Goya and I have one important thing in common - graphics. Eisenstein's is incredibly beautiful. Kate helped me get into RGALI, where his works are kept. They are very similar to storyboards, but, in principle, they are independent works.
"UNTITLED (PENTECOST)", 2016.
GUSKOV: The graphics of Eisenstein, like those of Goya, are rather gloomy.
LONGO: Yes, mostly black and white. Gloom is also a common characteristic for the three of us. That is, of course, there are other colors in Goya's paintings, but here we are talking about his etchings. In general, it is very difficult to beg for his work for the exhibition. We searched various museums, but one of Kate's assistants found out that the Museum of Modern Russian History has a complete selection of Goya's etchings, which was donated to the Soviet government in 1937 in honor of the anniversary of the revolution. The most wonderful thing is that it was the last edition made from authentic author's boards. They look so fresh like they were made yesterday.
GUSKOV: By the way, cinema is also part of your work. Did Eisenstein influence you so much that you decided to make films?
LONGO: Quite right. I first saw his films when I was in my twenties and they blew my mind. But for me, as an American, it was difficult to catch the political subtext. At that time, we did not really understand how Soviet propaganda worked. But putting that aspect aside, the films themselves are simply amazing.
GUSKOV: Did you, like Eisenstein, also not have everything going smoothly with the cinema?
LONGO: Yeah. Of course, I didn't have to deal with Stalin when I made Johnny Mnemonic, but all those Hollywood assholes made me sick. They tried their best to ruin the movie.
GUSKOV: Damn producers!
LONGO: Can you imagine?! When I started working on the film, my friend Keanu Reeves, who starred in it, was not yet so famous. But then Speed came out and he became a superstar. And now the movie is ready, and the producers decide to make it a "summer blockbuster". (Indignantly.) Launch it on the same weekend as the next "Batman" or "Die Hard". What can I say, I had a budget of 25 million dollars, and these films had a hundred each. Naturally, Johnny Mnemonic failed at the box office. In addition, the more money is pumped in to make a blockbuster, the worse the result. Of course, they could fire me without any problems, but I stayed and tried to keep somewhere around 60 percent of the original idea. And yes (pauses) I wanted the film to be black and white.
GUSKOV: You wanted to make an experimental movie, but you were prevented. Are your hands tied at the exhibition?
LONGO: Certainly. My idea is that artists capture time like reporters. But here is such a problem. For example, my friend has five thousand pictures on his iPhone, and this amount is hard to comprehend. And imagine: you enter the hall, where films by Eisenstein are shown in slow motion. The movie is no longer perceived as a whole, but you can see how perfect each frame is. The same with Goya - he has more than 200 etchings. The audience's eyes will glaze over from such a number, so we chose a few dozen that most coincide in mood with me and Eisenstein. It's the same with my work: Kate made a rigorous selection.
GUSKOV: Has popular culture had a strong influence on you?
LONGO: Yes. I am 63 years old, I am from the first generation that grew up with television. In addition, I had dyslexia, I began to read only after thirty. Now I read a lot, but then I looked at pictures more. This is what made me who I am. During my high school years, there were protests against the Vietnam War. One guy I studied with died at the University of Kent in 1970, where soldiers shot students. I still remember the photo in the newspaper. My wife, the German actress Barbara Zukova, was very frightened to find out how stuck these images were in my head.
GUSKOV: How did you come up with the graphics?
LONGO: It is important for me that work, months of work, is invested in my works, and not just pressing a button. People do not immediately understand that this is not a photo.
GUSKOV: For Eisenstein, his drawings, like films, were a way of therapy to cope with neuroses and phobias, to curb desires. And for you?
LONGO: I think yes. In some peoples and tribes, shamans do similar things. I understand it this way: a person goes crazy, locks himself in his dwelling and starts creating objects. And then he goes out and shows art to people who are also suffering, and they feel better. Through art, artists heal themselves, and the by-product is helping others. It certainly sounds stupid (laughs), but it seems to me that we are modern healers.
GUSKOV: Or preachers.
LONGO: And art is my religion, I believe in it. At least people don't get killed in his name.
American painter and sculptor whose main medium of expression is charcoal drawing on paper. Born January 7, 1953 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
"I belong to a generation that grew up on TV. TV was my babysitter. Art is a reflection of what we grew up on, what surrounded us as children. Do you know Anselm Kiefer? He grew up in post-war Germany, lying in ruins. And all this is us we see in his art. In my art, we see black and white images, as if descended from the TV screen, on which I grew up, "says .
Robert Longo in the project "Evidence" in "Garage".
The exhibition "Testimony: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo" has opened at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. All three artists were innovators of their time, they all thought about the time, they were all passionate about black and white images. Robert was always interested in artists who witnessed their time and documented everything that happened. In the works of Eisenstein and Goya, one sees evidence of the eras in which they lived. Longo admired their work.
And in 2016, the chief curator of the museum, Keith Fowl, together with Robert Longo, put together an exhibition from the archives of Eisenstein and Goya from the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.
A work of art is always about the beauty that the artist sees in the real world. I try to make people think when looking at my paintings. In a way, my paintings are designed to freeze a bit the endless pipeline of images that appear every second in the world. I try to slow it down by turning the photo into a charcoal painting. And besides, everyone draws - here you are talking to me on the phone and probably sketching something on a napkin - there is something basic and ancient in these lines, and I collide this with photographs taken sometimes in a second - on a phone or a soap box. And then I spend months drawing one image.
