Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History

The back cover of an art book, featuring a dramatic, black-and-white, hyperrealistic charcoal drawing by Robert Longo. A brilliant diagonal streak of light cuts through a dark, atmospheric industrial scene. On the left side, there is a block of text describing the exhibition Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History, along with publisher logos, an ISBN, and a barcode at the bottom.

A hardback book titled Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History. The cover features a dramatic, black-and-white photograph of a silhouetted equestrian statue on a pedestal, illuminated from below against a dark, hazy background. A crane arm with a hook is visible in the upper right. The author's name in white is layered over the title in blue.

An open book displaying a black-and-white photograph of the January 6th U.S. Capitol insurrection. A person in the foreground wears a beanie and a bandana over their face while holding a flagpole. In the background, amidst smoke, another individual wears a gas mask, and someone else holds up an American flag.

A photograph of the hardcover book Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History, shown at an angle on a white background. The cover features a dramatic, black-and-white image of a silhouetted figure on horseback against a dark, misty sky. The title is printed over the image in large white and bold blue text.

An open art book displays a two-page photograph of a gallery exhibition. Five large, framed black-and-white photographs hang in a row on a white wall above a light wood floor. A black leather L-shaped bench sits in the center of the room, facing the artwork.

An open book on a white surface displaying a dramatic, two-page spread of an eagle's head in a blue-toned, high-contrast close-up. The left page shows the bird's powerful, hooked beak against a black background, while the right page focuses on its intense, detailed eye.

A two-page spread from a book or catalog. On the left is a large, hyperrealistic black and white charcoal drawing by Robert Longo. The artwork shows a nighttime scene with a line of police in riot gear standing in a haze of smoke or tear gas, with bright lights and an explosion in the background. The right page features an essay titled The Acceleration of History by Margaret Andera.

A black and white photograph of a massive banyan tree. Its thick, dark trunk supports a complex network of innumerable thick branches that spread out in all directions, creating a dense, tangled canopy that fills the entire frame.

An artist's studio with a white wall smudged with black paint. Two large, heavily textured black and white portraits hang side by side, their subjects' faces partially obscured by vertical streaks. A modern black office chair is centered between the two large pieces, with smaller studies of the portraits tacked to the wall around them.

A dramatic black and white photograph of a dense evergreen forest during a heavy snowstorm. The trees are covered in thick snow, and the air is filled with falling snowflakes, creating a textured and atmospheric winter landscape.

A black and white photograph of a large, multi-story house at night, completely outlined with bright Christmas lights. The house glows against the dark sky, surrounded by snow with tire tracks visible in the foreground.

A grainy, black-and-white, close-up photograph of a line of police officers in riot gear at night. They are holding tall, transparent shields that partially obscure their figures and helmets. A bright light flares from the upper right, and the word POLICE is faintly visible through one of the shields.

A wide, black and white photograph of a massive wildfire at night. On the left, a single car drives on a dark road with a burning hillside in the distance. To the right, intense flames rage along the roadside, silhouetting trees and filling the air with smoke.

A diptych of a sculpture called Untitled (A Column of Time). The left image shows the full sculpture, a tall, slender column made of stacked newspapers, standing in a minimalist gallery. The right image is a close-up of the column, showing the weathered, uneven texture of the compressed layers of paper.

A black and white image from behind a person wearing a cat-eared pussyhat, standing in a large crowd of protesters on a city street. The people are flanked by tall buildings and march toward a bright, hazy light shining down the street, backlighting the scene.

A dramatic black and white drawing, presented as a two-page spread, after Goya's The Third of May 1808. The nighttime scene shows a line of soldiers aiming their rifles at a group of civilians. A central man in a white shirt raises his arms in defiance as others cower and fall. Dead bodies lie in the foreground.

A dramatic black and white photograph showing a long line of people huddled together as they crest a massive, dark wave in a turbulent sea under an ominous, cloudy sky.

A two-page book spread. The left page features a large black and white drawing by Robert Longo of a man in a suit, contorted and leaning dramatically backward against a white background. The right page contains an article about the artist, next to a small color still from the movie The Matrix, showing a character in a similar backward-bending pose.

Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History

€ 48.00

VAT included. Shipping costs will be calculated at checkout

September 2025, 160 Pages

Hardcover

266mm x 318mm

ISBN: 978-3-7757-5803-1

HATJE CANTZ VERLAG
Mommsenstr. 27
10629 Berlin
Germany
E-Mail: contact@hatjecantz.de

According to Article 9(7) of the GPSR Regulation, no additional security information is required for books without supplements or special functions.

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Drawings that navigate the storm of images

Robert Longo is widely known for his highly detailed and hyper-realistic charcoal drawings that explore the construction of power symbols. He explores the implications of living in an image-saturated culture—how we filter, process and preserve the images we are confronted with on a daily basis. This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Robert Longo: The Acceleration of History at the Milwaukee Art Museum and focuses on Longo's works of the last ten years, including images of war, protest movements, immigration and climate change created in direct response to contemporary global events and drawn from images widely circulated through various media sources.

ROBERT LONGO (b. 1953) is an artist, filmmaker and musician living in New York. He is considered a key figure of the US "Pictures Generation," which used appropriation and montage in the 1980s to unmask stereotypes in visual culture and to criticize the mediatization of war and the excessive glorification of history. With his labor-intensive, large-format charcoal drawings, Longo aims to slow down the consumption of the images that inundate us daily through our screens, or what the artist calls the "storm of images."

EXHIBITION
Milwaukee Art Museum
October 25, 2024-February 23, 2025

»[...] a testament to the power of images to hold a mirror to ourselves.«

Rafael Francisco Salas

Newcity Art