Robert Longo Study of Standing Wing, 2022

Wings are a recurring motif in Robert Longo’s charcoal drawings. Depicted in black and white and cropped closely within the pictorial frame, the subject transcends its association with the everyday. The rich texture of the feathers, articulated in individual detail, transforms the wings into a symbol of the spiritual or otherworldly. For Longo, the painstaking photorealism of his drawings, ‘combined with the medium’s inherent intimacy, represents a sincere attempt to slow down the image, to provoke the viewer to consume its full power.’

Longo will have a solo exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum opening in April 2024 and a retrospective at the ALBERTINA Museum in Vienna opening in September 2024.