Robert Longo

Rare "Dickhead" Robert Longo Bronze Sculpture

1988

Very rare cast. (edition of 1 or 2) This work was featured in an article "The Appropriation of Marginal Art in the 1980s Author: Donald Kuspit Source: American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 1991), pp. 132-141 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This appears to be modeled after a figure by HR Giger. it was cast by Polich Tallix Foundry. Born in Brooklyn, 1953 Robert Longo became synonymous with American pictorial art during the 80s, his ambitious large-scale works seemingly synchronized with the booming economy and boisterous values of the Reagan era. In 1974, whilst studying at State University College, Buffalo, Longo co-founded Hallwalls. As a studio and exhibition space for contemporary art, Hallwalls was the precursor of Longo's ongoing concern for utilizing art's multi-disciplinary potential. His partner in this venture was Cindy ShermanAfter graduation Longo showed in 1979 at The Kitchen, a downtown space which encouraged artistic experimentation and collaboration. In the following year, he had his first one-person exhibition in Europe, at Studio d'Arte Cannaviello in Milan. Since then, Longo has shown continuously in Europe and America. However, it was his first solo exhibition at Metro Pictures, New York, in 1981 that brought him international critical acclaim. This installation of Men in the Cities presented his charcoal, graphite and dye studies of office workersThis interruption of a smooth linear reading, notably used in Dada and Surrealist collage, undermines assumptions, whether they be cultural, social or political. In 'Men in the Cities' Longo cuts anonymous people from their environments, then splices their portraits in amongst blocks of buildings. The association is made between the private and the corporate, the human and the industrial, the fragile and the impervious. Engagement with the social and political can be seen in Longo's work throughout the 80s, setting him apart from fellow artists David Salle and Julian Schnabel. Following a major retrospective at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989, Longo began to focus on single themes, rather than montages of associations. Furthermore, he moved to Paris the following year. The 'Black Flag' series resulted from this change in direction, and location. Taking the Stars and Stripes as his subject, Longo re-worked the treatment of the spangled banner by Pop artist Jasper Johns. J Longo is a multi talented artist who works equally successfully in a variety of media. He is equally well known as a sculptor and film director as he is as a draftsman/painter, and like the best of the contemporary film directors, his aim is to seduce, elucidate, transform, and instruct. SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS Art Institute of Chicago, USA Guggenheim Museum, New York Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada Museum of Modern Art, New York Saatchi Collection, London Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tate Gallery, London Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthalle Tubingen, Germany, 1997 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1997 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 1997 'Robert Longo: Kreuze', Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1996 'Robert Longo: A Retrospective', The Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1995 'Robert Longo: A Retrospective', Ashikaga City Museum, Kirin Plaza Art Space, Osaka, Japan, 1995 'Faith in Zero' Project: Galerie Daniel Templon, Galerie Antoine Candau, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, A.B. Galleries, Galerie Gordon Pym et Fils, Paris, France, 1991 'Black Flags', Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, 1990 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1989 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA, 1989 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA, 1989 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, USA, 1986 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, USA, 1986 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, 1986 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1985 Metro Pictures, New York, 1981 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS La Biennale di Venezia: XLVII Esposizioione Internationale d'Arte, Venice, Italy, 1997 'Views From Abroad: European Perspectives on American Art 3', Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1997 'Allegories of Modernism: Contemporary Drawing', The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992 'A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation', The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA, 1989 'Documenta 8', Kassel, Germany, 1987 L?epoque, La Mode, La Morale, La Passion, 1977 - 1987', Mus'e National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1987 "New York '85" (with Jasper Johns, Elsworth Kelly...

Sydney Kumalo. Features a bronze stylized female figural form sculpture fixed to a marble plinth and wood base. Bears signature on base. Measures 9 1/2" x 4 1/4". There is no edition number on the piece. Sydney Kumalo (1935 - 1988) was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, on 13 April 1935. His was one of the families who had to move out of the "white" city to the South Western Townships, or Soweto. Raised in Diepkloof and educated at Madibane High School, he took with him from old Sophiatown the curious and diverse heritage of its heyday. Art classes in the Catholic school, "Sof' town" blues and jazz, the vibrant street culture and growing defiance of its population of various races who were gradually forced out into separate race-group areas. So it was that these various aspects of his early life created for Kumalo a cultural mix of a Zulu family related to the traditional royal house; city schooling, nascent township music and lingo; growing urbanised political defiance and the deep-rooted Zulu pride and respect for the legends and ancient stories of a tribal people. This mix of old and new cultures was reinforced when he began his studies at the Polly Street Art Centre in 1953 where he became a member of Cecil Skotnes group of serious artists who were encouraged to acquire professional skills. Skotnes introduced a basic training programme with modelling as a component, which marked the introduction of sculpting (in brick-clay) at Polly Street. Kumalo was Skotnes’ assistant at Polly Street from 1957 to 1964, and having recognised his great talent as a sculptor, Skotnes encouraged him to become a professional artist. After Kumalo’s very successful assistance with a commission to decorate the St Peter Claver church at Seeisoville near Kroonstad, with painting designs, sculpture and relief panels in 1957, Skotnes arranged for Kumalo to continue his art training by working in Edoardo Villa ’s studio from 1958 to 1960. Working with Villa, he received professional guidance and began to familiarize himself with the technical aspects of sculpting and bronze casting. In 1960 he became an instructor at the Polly Street Art Centre. Kumalo started exhibiting his work with some of the leading commercial Johannesburg galleries in 1958, and had his first solo exhibition with the Egon Guenther Gallery in 1962. He was a leader of the generation who managed to leave behind the forms of African curios, reject the European-held paternalism which encouraged notions of "naive" and "tribal" African art, and yet still hold fast to the core of the old legends and spiritual values of his people. He introduced these subjects into his bronze sculptures and pastel drawings, evolving his own expressive, contemporary African "style". Together with Skotnes, Villa, Cecily Sash and Giuseppe Cattaneo, Kumalo became part of the Amadlozi group in 1963. This was a group of artists promoted by the African art collector and gallery director Egon Guenther, and characterised by their exploration of an African idiom in their art. Elza Miles writes that Cecil Skotnes’ friendship with Egon Guenther had a seminal influence on the aspirant artists of Polly Street: “Guenther broadened their experience by introducing them to German Expressionism as well as the sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa. He familiarised them with the work of Ernst Barlach, Käthe Kollwitz, Gustav Seitz, Willi Baumeister and Rudolf Sharf.” It is therefore not surprising that some of Kumalo’s sculptures show an affinity with Barlach’s powerful expressionist works. Guenther organised for the Amadlozi group to hold exhibitions around Italy, in Rome, Venice, Milan and Florence, in both 1963 and 1964. Kumalo’s career took off in the mid 1960s, with his regular participation in exhibitions in Johannesburg, London, New York and Europe. He also represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale in 1966, and in 1967 participated in the São Paulo Biennale. EJ De Jager (1992) describes Kumalo’s sculpture as retaining much of the “canon and formal aesthetic qualities of classical African sculpture. His work contains the same monumentality and simplicity of form.” His main medium for modelling was terra cotta, which was then cast in bronze, always paying careful attention to the finish of both the model as well as the final cast. He began casting the pieces he modelled in clay or plaster into bronze at the Renzo Vignali Artistic Foundry in Pretoria North. He worked throughout his life with its owners, the Gamberini family, and enjoyed learning the technical aspects of the casting process, refining his surfaces according to what he learned would produce the best results in metal. De Jager further writes that Kumalo’s distinctive texturing of the bronze or terra cotta is reminiscent of traditional carving techniques of various African cultures. “In many respects Kumalo thus innovated a genuine contemporary or modern indigenous South African sculpture”. Kumalo came to admire the works of the Cubists, and of British sculptors Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick. He became noted for adapting shapes from them into his own figures. The success of his use of the then current monumental simplicity and purely aesthetic abstractions of natural forms has been emulated by many South African sculptors since the 1970s. He was in many ways the doyen of South African Black art. As such he was an important influence especially on younger African sculptors, by whom he is greatly revered. Through his teaching at Polly Street and at the Jubilee Centre, as well as through his personal example of integrity, dedication and ability, he inspired and guided students who in their own right became outstanding artists, for example, Ezrom Legae, Leonard Matsoso and Louis Maqhubela From 1969 onward, he allied himself with Linda Givon, founder of The Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, where he exhibited regularly until his death in December 1988. Working with Givon also perpetuated his associations with his many friends of strong principles. Skotnes, Villa, Legae and later such peers from the Polly Street era as Leonard Matsoso, Durant Sihlali and David Koloane have all exhibited at The Goodman Gallery. Kumalo, Legae, and later Fikile (Magadlela) and Dumile (Feni) were among the leading exponents of a new Afrocentric art...