Robert Longo: The Sickness of Reason    Feb 20 - Mar 27, 2004

Massive, unfurling atomic explosions are the central subject of The Sickness of Reason, Robert Longo’s exhibition of very large charcoal drawings. Executed in high contrast, dense blacks, the drawings combine stunning visual presence, unsettling emotional conflict, and terrifying physical power - themes that have engaged Longo throughout his career. The deeply affecting power of the drawings results from the reanimation of atomic bomb tests known primarily through the grey and grainy newspaper and text book images from the cold war era. The relationship between this body of work and that of the prior three years is addressed in the exhibition by inclusion of a drawing inspired by Einstein’s office that is reminiscent of the Freud drawings; another of parallel lines of sequential breaking waves that is a departure from Longo’s recent crashing close-up’s of enormous waves; and a drawing of a night time rocket launch, in a display of harnessed power.

Robert Longo’s studio is in Lower Manhattan; he lives in Brooklyn. His work is included in this year’s Whitney Biennial. An exhibition of his Freud Drawings (at Metro Pictures in 2001) traveled to the Krefelder Kunstmuseen, in Germany and The Albertina in Vienna accompanied by a catalogue. Longo has had retrospective exhibitions at the Hamburger Kunstverein and Deichtorhallen in Germany, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hartford Athenaeum, the Isetan Museum of Art in Tokyo and included in group shows such as Documenta, the Whitney Biennial, Venice Biennial, and the Carnegie International. The work has been represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Guggenheim Museum, High Museum in Atlanta, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Menil Collection in Houston, Musee d’art Contemporain in Montreal, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Albertina in Vienna. Monticelli Press is preparing two books: one on Longo’s Magellan project, and the other documenting his work from the 1990’s to the present.

Upcoming exhibition schedule:
John Miller, 3 April – 1 May
Cindy Sherman, 8 May

For additional information, contact Travis Choat at Metro Pictures.