(born in New York in 1953)
Untitled, (Earth, for Zander), signed, dated RLongo 2006, charcoal on paper, 183 x 213.5 cm, framed 193 x 223.5 cm

Provenance:
Metro Pictures, New York (gallery label) - acquired there from the previous owner

Exhibited:
New York, Metro Pictures, Robert Longo: The Outward and Visible Signs of an Inward and Invisible Grace, 3.11.-9.12.2006

In his detailed, large-format drawings, Robert Longo makes use of the varied tonality of charcoal, and with this archaic drawing material is able to give graphic shape to his globe in Untitled (Earth, for Zander) in an intense bright blue. The contrast between the light parts, the sfumato of the sketched continents and the deep black is developed in the most extreme manner through the medium of charcoal.
The viewer looks out from the depths, from the infinity of the universe down onto the globe, which Robert Longo portrays as a spherical abstraction of swirling weather fronts. Over America, and especially over the East Coast and Longo’s home New York, rages a great vortex of varying bands of clouds which almost entirely swallow up the continent. With the series of planets which Robert Longo first presented in 2006 in an exhibition in the Metro Pictures Gallery in Manhattan, Longo once more clearly shows man’s insignificance in contrast with the mighty universe.