Robert Longo at the Albertina: ‘I created a world’ The artist in conversation with Almuth Spiegler

Robert Longo is one of the most important artists in the USA. Opening today, the Albertina exhibits his hyper-realistic charcoal drawings based on media photographs.

Die Presse: You are currently giving a lot of interviews in the run-up to the exhibition. Does it bother you to always have to answer similar questions?

Robert Longo: I was married to an actress (Barbara Sukowa, ed.) for a long time. I asked her how to do it on stage, that it always sounds like it's the first time. She said you have to try to say the same thing in a new way each time and learn from it. I found that very interesting. Since then, I've enjoyed talking about my work and learning from it.

Like what, for example?

I've just realised that my art is actually about the desire to share something. That's my biggest motivation. It reminds me of when I took LSD as a very young man. I then saw Jimi Hendrix in a tree. I said to my friend: Look, do you see Jimi Hendrix in the tree? And he said: No. That's what I'm about, making this Jimi Hendrix visible in a tree and sharing it.

Without LSD.

Exactly. And also without Jimi Hendrix. I want to show that art makes history. That I record time with my pictures. This has always been confusing in art. In the past, there was the church, then rulers who told artists what they should do. Today, many artists believe they have to follow the art market. This is disturbing. Nevertheless, when I see Caravaggio and the dirty feet he painted, or Rembrandt – I can imagine what it was like to live back then. That's the freedom I mean. All art is political. This painting from 1981, of a man in front of a destroyed city in Lebanon: I did that when Reagan was president. I thought he would tell me not to show it. But he didn't. Now it reminds me of pictures from Gaza, which is very irritating.

You couldn't read at a young age, you were severely dyslexic. Did you watch a lot of television instead?

Yes, the television was my babysitter. I was most impressed by epic films like ‘Spartacus’ or ‘The Ten Commandments’. That's why I want to make epic art.