Seven Questions with Robert Longo An interview

By Eliza Goodpasture

For the series 'Seven questions with...' Art UK publishes interviews with emerging and established artists working today.

Robert Longo's career spans over four decades. Born and raised in New York City, where he continues to live and work, Longo's artwork has always been grounded in drawing. His early series Men in the Cities debuted in 1981, and he has continued to explore the potential of the medium ever since. He has also worked on films, music videos, paintings and sculpture. His most recent work, including a series of multimedia installations he calls Combines, is currently on view in London at PACE Gallery and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. His retrospective at the Albertina Museum in Vienna is on view until January 2025.

Eliza Goodpasture, Art UK: How has your drawing practice influenced the trajectory of your work?

Robert Longo: Drawing is the basis of all art. It's the most direct way of working. I think it's also a tradition of learning to observe. When you draw, you actually have to look. I think drawing requires a level of observation that is really critical to being an artist. A lot of artists can't draw and I'm always very suspicious of that. As an American, I remember being in Europe and being in museums and watching people copy Rembrandts and Caravaggios and things like that. But American classical art is Abstract Expressionism, so in America, people don't really have chops. And the people who have chops end up working in Hollywood painting backdrops, you know? So, I don't think a lot of contemporary artists can draw. I'm drawing all the time. It's like writing, it's a form of language. Drawing is the foundation of everything.

Eliza: How do you think the perception of drawing has changed over the course of your career? Do you think there is a negative perception of working on paper among contemporary artists?

Robert: When I was making drawings in the beginning [in the 1980s], all my friends were doing photographs and films and videos. I didn't have any money, so to make a long story short I took home some backdrop paper and just started to draw. I realised I could do with drawing what I wanted to do; I didn't have to make photographs. I took drawing to this obscene point where I wanted to compete with movies and magazines and television. It's a weird zone because when I tell people I make charcoal drawings they think I'm making these little, tiny things, but I'm not. It's amazing to make something out of dust.

I'm doing this show at the Albertina, which has the greatest drawing collection in Europe – they have the Dürers and Rembrandts, you know. The director there saw my early drawing series of Freud's apartment, and he realised that drawings could be really big. He had just taken over the Albertina at the time and he realised the Albertina needed to be come into the twenty-first century. He excavated the basement of the Albertina to make a huge space where he started to do exhibitions of big drawings. He told me that my work made him realise that drawings don't have to be these little, tiny things anymore, they can be big, colourful, whatever. So, this show I have now in Vienna, it's basically all my work from 1981 to now. There's one sculpture in it, but it's basically all drawing.