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Oral history interview with Robert Longo, 2009 January 30-31

Online Media

Catalog Data

Interviewee:
Longo, Robert, 1953-  Search this
Interviewer:
Richards, Judith Olch  Search this
Subject:
Acconci, Vito  Search this
Alexander, Brooke  Search this
Bender, Gretchen  Search this
Brauntuch, Troy  Search this
Clough, Charles  Search this
Fink, Leonara  Search this
Fischer, Konrad  Search this
Gibson, William  Search this
Goldstein, Jack  Search this
Heiss, Alanna  Search this
Irwin, Robert  Search this
König, Kasper  Search this
Krims, Leslie  Search this
LeWitt, Sol  Search this
Malkin, Phil  Search this
Mazzoli, Emilio  Search this
McMann, Paul  Search this
Mullican, Matt  Search this
Ranieri, Dominic  Search this
Reeves, Keanu  Search this
Reiring, Janelle  Search this
Salle, David  Search this
Shea, Diane  Search this
Sherman, Cindy  Search this
Sukowa, Barbara  Search this
Winer, Helene  Search this
Zwack, Michael  Search this
Hallwalls (Museum)  Search this
Los Angeles County Museum of Art  Search this
Metro Pictures (Gallery)  Search this
Nassau Community College  Search this
State University of New York at Buffalo  Search this
University of North Texas  Search this
Type:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
France -- Paris -- description and travel
Italy -- description and travel
Place of publication, production, or execution:
New York (State)
Physical Description:
Sound recording: 4 sound discs (4 hr., 54 min.), digital; 91 Pages, Transcript
General Note:
Originally recorded on 4 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 54 min.
Summary:
An interview of Robert Longo conducted 2009 January 30-31, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art, at Longo's studio, in New York.
Longo speaks of his Italian heritage, his family and growing up in Long Island, New York; the role magazines, television, and movies played in artistic inspiration; his dyslexia; his interest in sports and music in high school; moving to Denton, Texas to attend the University of North Texas before being expelled; moving back to New York and enrolling in Nassau Community College; traveling to Italy to study art history, where he discovered his desire to become an artist; attending Buffalo State University where he met Charlie Clough, Michael Zwack, and Cindy Sherman, with whom he created Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center; Robert Irwin, Sol LeWitt and Vito Acconci's involvement with Hallwalls; moving to New York City with Cindy Sherman to begin their careers as artists; working at The Kitchen and his performance pieces of the period; the child-like, punk, and corporate influences and the process of creating his "archetypical" Men in the Cities series; his relationship with Gretchen Bender; the formations of Metro Pictures gallery by Helene Winer and Janelle Reiring; the Combines, sculptures, music videos, and short films created in the 1980's and their mixed reception and mixed success in the difficult art market; his works cast in aluminum and metal; his first retrospective held at the LA County Museum of Art in 1989 and feeling lost in his own work; creating "bad art" in the process of attempting sobriety; black flag imagery and his success in Europe, which served as inspiration to move to Paris for several years; meeting his wife, Barbara Sukowa, a German actress; how having children changed his perspective and how they act as antennae to the world; his directorial role of the 1992 film, "Johnny Mnemonic"; and the slow progression, and continuity, of imagery in different bodies of work from the mid-1990's through the present, including the Magellan series (drawings of 366 different images), Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud's offices, and series of waves, bombs, roses, planets, sleeping babies, and sharks. Longo also recalls Leonora Fink, Phil Malkin, Rick Zucker, Les Krims, Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Paul McMann, David Salle, Matt Mullican, Diane Shea, Alanna Heiss, Kasper Konig, Konrad Fischer, Brooke Alexander, Dominic Ranieri, William Gibson, Keanu Reeves, Emilio Mazzoli and others.
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Robert Longo, 2009 January 30-31. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Transcript is available on the Archives of American Art's website.
Funding:
Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service.
Biography Note:
Robert Longo (1953- ) is a painter and sculptor in New York, New York. Judith Olch Richards (1947- ) is former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Dyslexia  Search this
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews  Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)15649
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)282217
AAA_collcode_longo09
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_oh_282217