Robert Longo is sometimes called the creator of death. This New York artist covers topics in his works that other artists try to avoid.
Coal, a nuclear explosion and... sharks
Debris charcoal pencil and graphite, Longo creates masterpieces that make you horrified - three-dimensional images of terrible tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear explosions. But these are not the artist’s works that are recognized as the most frightening and realistic.
Robert Longo draws sharks with charcoal.
Creepy monsters with open mouths, powerful curves of shark bodies emerging from the blackness, foreshadowing the death of the jaw - all this fascinates and frightens.
Similar frightening paintings by the master are today in the most famous museum collections and private collections. For his works, Longo even received the legendary Goslar Kaiser Ring award - an alternative Oscar in modern art.
Robert Longo - artist of death
Robert Longo was born in Brooklyn in 1953. WITH early childhood the future "artist of death" was interested in art.
After Longo entered the art academy in Texas, but dropped out and entered the Buffalo College of Art, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. The shark portraitist began his career with sculpture, but then became interested in painting.
The artist’s first exhibition took place in 1980, but did not bring him much fame. Next year marked the beginning of a new project and growing popularity for the artist.
In addition to his works of the apocalypse in the form of an atomic mushroom, the art master is also known for his directorial work “Johnny Mnemonic.”
The shark is the artist's best friend
Robert Longo calls sharks his best models. It was their images that became a sensation in 2007 at the exhibition "PERFECT GODS" - ideal Gods. Sharks, according to Longo, are great creations.
Fans of creativity very often ask the question: why does the author create such “deadly” paintings? Why not landscapes, not portraits? The artist answers briefly: “I paint reality.”
One famous psychiatrist once suggested that Longo had obsessive-compulsive disorder or “fearful thoughts syndrome.”
Robert Longo, according to the doctor, as a result of severe psychological trauma suffered in childhood, suffers from obsessive thoughts and fears of dying from the elements or from the teeth of a huge shark.
The artist resolutely rejected these assumptions, but confirmed that as a child he actually witnessed a big car accident, when a school bus collided with a car in Brooklyn.
In addition, Robert Longo does not deny that by nature he is a pessimist and “a terrible melancholic who loves to leaf through graphic comics or watch BBC News reports of tragic explosions.”
It is also known that the artist is terrified of large amounts of water and has an incomprehensible interest in photographs of people tortured after shark attacks. That’s why the sharks in Longo’s paintings look so realistic.
There is something in common between sharks, hurricanes and nuclear explosions, says the artist. “All of these things are unexpected, all of them are amazingly beautiful, and all of them do not bode well.
And these words are full of truth.
Robert Longo Untitled (Guernica Redacted, Picasso’s Guernica, 1937), 2014 Charcoal on mounted paper 4 panels, 283.2x620.4 cm, overall Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London. Paris. Salzburg
Your project in Russia is closely related to archival work. What attracts you to archives?
Everything is simple here. I like the opportunity to immerse myself in the material and learn more about it than others. Museum Archive modern history was magnificent: these long corridors with hundreds of boxes - it was like being in a cemetery. You approach one of the boxes and ask the caretaker: “What’s here?” They answer you: “Chekhov.” Of course, I was most interested in the works of Eisenstein and Goya. The works of the second were a gift from the Spaniards to Russia in 1937.
I immediately remember your exhibition in 2014 in New York, where you redrew charcoal paintings of the great American abstract expressionists. Both now and then, these exhibitions, on the one hand, are group, but on the other, your personal ones.
IN Gang of Cosmos I researched the post-war period, very interesting period American history. I was fascinated by the difference between a brush stroke and a charcoal stroke. You could say I translated the works of Pollock, Newman, Mitchell into black and white. Of course, I took canonical works that are more than just works, since they have their own context around them, which interested me no less. Abstract expressionism appeared after the world destroyed itself and rebooted itself in euphoria. The country had hope then, but in 2014, perhaps, there was less hope.
In “Testimony” you, Goya and Eisenstein become co-authors of one exhibition.
This is Kate Fowle's idea, not mine. She came to me with this idea because these two artists have always fascinated me. I in no way put myself on the same level as them, they are a great inspiration, history. Interestingly, Eisenstein was very fond of Goya. And Goya at one time created storyboards, although cinema had not yet been invented. Goya and Eisenstein were engaged in surveying time. I feel that as an artist, I act as a reporter talking about modern life. Perhaps today it is easier to do this, because the artist does not depend as much on the state as Eisenstein, or as Goya on religion. But we focused primarily on the beauty of the image. For example, they excluded texts from films so as not to get hung up on the plots.
Has your sense of time changed over 55 years of creativity?
Historically, today is a more complex, frightening and exciting time than ever before. The same Trump is an idiot, a moron and a fascist who will endanger the security of the entire country if he is elected. I'm not a political artist and I don't want to be one, but sometimes I have to.
Yes, for example, you have a painting of the Ferguson riots.
When I first saw photos from Ferguson in the newspapers, I didn't believe it was the USA. I thought maybe it was Afghanistan or Ukraine? But then I took a closer look at the police uniform and realized: this is happening right under my nose. It was a shock.
For me, dystopia has always been associated with the 1980s, which I missed. But according to films and books, it seems that it was then that the dark future in which we are beginning to live now was predicted.
Everything changed on September 11, 2001, it is now a completely different world. The world has become more global, but on the other hand, more fragmented. Do you know what the main problem USA? This is not a nation or a tribe, it is sport Team. And a sports team always wants to win. Our a big problem is that we don’t know how to live without constant victories. This can lead to disaster because the stakes are always high.
Coal is good for depicting a dystopian future.
Yes, but I always leave a degree of hope in my work. In the end, a work of art is always about the beauty that the artist sees in real world. I try to make people think when they look at my paintings. In a sense, my paintings are created to slightly freeze the endless conveyor of images that appear every second in the world. I try to slow it down, turning the photograph into a charcoal painting. And besides, everyone draws - here you are talking to me on the phone and probably scribbling something on a napkin - there is something basic and ancient in these lines, and I contrast this with photographs taken sometimes in a second - on a phone or a point-and-shoot camera. And then I spend months drawing one image.
You once said that you create paintings from dust because you use coal.
Yes, I love dust and dirt. And I like to know that they drew it this way cave people. That is, my technology is one of the oldest in the world. Prehistoric.
You love antiquity so much and at the same time you made the cyberpunk Johnny Mnemonic - something radically different from your main passion.
Well you noticed. The irony is that the Internet has become the same caves where people have fun in a primitive way.
Do you remember the time without the Internet? How it was?
Oh yes, that time. Interestingly, the Internet has allowed me to find images that in the old days would require me to subscribe to magazines or go to libraries. The Internet gave me the opportunity to get to any picture. It made me think about the volume of images that appear in the world every second.
Pilots, sharks, sexy girls, dancers, the ocean, impressive explosions - this is what New York artist Robert Longo depicts. His illustrations are extremely deep, mystical, powerful and attractive. Perhaps this effect is achieved due to the black and white picture, which the author carefully painted using charcoal.
Robert Longo was born in 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. When talking about himself, the artist never forgets to mention that he loves cinema, comics, magazines and has a weakness for television, which have a significant influence on his work. Robert Longo draws most of the themes for his paintings from what he has seen and read previously. The author has always loved to draw, and although he received a bachelor's degree in sculpture, this does not prevent him from doing what he loves, but on the contrary. Some of the artist’s drawings are very reminiscent of sculptures; he likes the outlines that come out from under the hand. There is a certain power in this.
Major exhibitions of Robert Longo's paintings are held at the Los Angeles Museum of Art, as well as at the Museum contemporary art in Chicago.
The study is an analysis of the film Johnny Mnemonic, the only feature-length film directed by artist Robert Longo.
Alexander URSUL
When getting acquainted with the picture, a number of questions arise. How could a man who became famous for his charcoal drawings, in particular the “Men in the Cities” series, get involved in directing? And also directing such a blockbuster with a star-studded cast? Robert Longo , of course, a commercial artist. His graphics are fashionable, they show how style rules over everything today, and most importantly, over life and death. Robert Longo is a postmodernist. And therefore it can work with everything, absolutely everything. But why did he choose science fiction for self-expression? And for a film adaptation - a work in the cyberpunk genre? What came of it? Is this movie a noticeable phenomenon or a passing one?
First, let's look at what experience Longo had with video before Mnemonic. In the 1980s, he directed several music videos: a video for the song Bizarre Love Triangle by the British rock band New Order (see below), a video for Peace Sells by the American thrash metal band Megadeth, a video for the hit American rock band R.E.M. – The One I Love, etc. The long-term video maker actively uses editing tools - double exposure, quick changes of frames that can last less than a second, etc. The content of the clips has hints of surrealism - for example, a man in a suit who flies down in free fall, but can't fall, etc. In the video for Megadeth, the director relishes the close-up of the performer's singing - no, screaming - lips - later we see close-ups of the lips and clenched teeth of the main character Johnny Mnemonic. The clips were regularly shown on television channels like MTV.
Longo's love of music is not without reason - in his youth he organized the punk band Menthol Wars, which performed in rock clubs in New York in the late 70s. You can listen to one of the compositions here:
In 1987, the artist made a short film (34 min.) about a group of New Yorkers - Arena Brains. I couldn't find this work on the Internet. But there is a work of the same name by Longo the artist (see appendix), where the head of a man, clearly screaming, with exposed teeth (repeated in Longo’s work visual image), where the brain is located, an image of fire is added. Are your brains on fire?
(Stillages from the music video Peace Sells by the metal band Megadeth)
(Stillage from Johnny Mnemonic)
(Longo's work called Arena Brains)
The next step in Longo's career as a director was work on the second series fourth season project “Tales from the Crypt” (series This’ll Kill Ya) of the American channel HBO. “Tales from the Crypt” is a cult series in certain circles, based on comic books. Each 30-minute episode is a different story in which people do bad things and pay for them. Over the course of several years, 93 episodes of the horror film were filmed, one of which was entrusted to Robert Longo. The director's assistant was the artist's nephew, Christopher Longo (future sound engineer in Hollywood).
“I died, and this man killed me” - these are one of the first words uttered in this “tale”. The series “This Will Kill You” is dedicated to a certain laboratory in which a new drug is being developed - h24. Two scientists - Sophie and Peck - are under the leadership of the self-confident upstart George. One day, instead of the medicine that George needs, his colleagues accidentally inject him with h24 serum, but the new medicine has not yet been tested on humans. The episode contains sex with an ex, love triangle, paranoia, hallucinogenic visions of people covered in bubbles, and murder.
Turning to , it can be noted that Longo often tilts the camera on its side to get unusual angles. The same manner will be present in Johnny Mnemonic. Also actively involved double exposure. Some plans are designed with the dominance of one color, for example, blue (compare with the use of charcoal in the artist’s drawings).
A couple of clips, a short film and one episode - this is Longo’s entire experience in creating videos (before “Mnemonic”). Quite small. But we can already draw conclusions from it. The groups for which the artist made videos, although they work in “youth” genres and are initially underground, become commercially successful. This episode of Tales from the Crypt, like music videos Longo, it seems to us, clearly belongs to popular culture. However, the question remains whether Longo played with style in these works, whether he appropriated it, or whether he simply worked for his own pleasure in new specialty, making money.
Now we will finally begin to analyze the film "Johnny Mnemonic".
What's on the surface? Blockbuster 1995. Genre: cyberpunk. Budget – 26 million dollars. Star cast– Keanu Reeves (who became famous at that time for the film “Speed”), Dolph Lundgren (action actor), Takeshi Kitano (the same Japanese actor and director), Ice-T (actor and rapper), Barbara Zukova (wife of Robert Longo, starred in "Berlin, Alexanderplatz" by Fassbinder), Udo Kier (played in Hollywood cinema many charismatic anti-heroes) and others. Musical accompaniment from the creator of the Terminator soundtrack, Brad Fidel. The screenwriter was one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre in literature - William Gibson, author of the original story "Johnny Mnemonic" and good friend Longo.
Initially, Gibson and Longo wanted to make, in their words, an auteur film with a budget of no more than one or two million dollars, but no one gave them that kind of money. The movie has been in development for over five years. Gibson joked that his higher education he got it faster than they made the film. At some point, according to the authors, they came up with the idea of making a movie with a price of 26 million dollars, and then they were willing to meet them.
(Illustrations below: Longo's sketches and footage from the Johnny Mnemonic film itself)
What is this “information age tale,” as science fiction writer Gibson calls it, about?
At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to the situation through text running from bottom to top. In the near future - in 2021 - power in the world belongs to powerful transnational corporations. In a world completely dependent on electronic technology, humanity is suffering from a new plague - nervous exhaustion syndrome, or black fever. The disease is fatal. The dictatorship of corporations is opposed by oppositionists who call themselves “Lotex” - hackers, pirates, etc. Corporations, in turn, hire the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) to fight the rebels. There is an information war going on.
In a completely cybernated world, information is the main commodity. The most valuable data is entrusted to couriers - mnemonics. A mnemonic is a person with an implant in the brain who is able to carry gigabytes of information in his head. Main character– mnemonic John Smith – doesn’t know where his home is. He once deleted his memories to free up space in his cybernetic brain. Now his head serves as a hard drive or even a flash drive for others. John, of course, wants his memory back. His boss suggests last time work as a courier to get enough money to get your memory back. Of course, the hero gets into trouble - the amount of information he has taken upon himself is doubled. If you do not get rid of this data within 24 hours, it will die. And on the heels of the hero are professional killers - the Yakuza.
A hero without a past. In a black suit and white shirt with a tie. There is a socket in the head - a connector for wires. Standardization plus aesthetics.
They are hunting for his head - in literally: they want to cut off the head to get to the information. The hero must run to the goal - he must deliver the information stolen from the Farmakom corporation.
With the help of special gloves and a helmet, Johnny becomes one with the technology and penetrates the cyber network, the Internet of the future.
Longo seems to be playing with genre. There are a lot of clichés here: the hero wakes up in bed with another random woman, Mnemonic beats up enemies with a towel handle, villains laughing like hell in cowboy hats, the disappearance of a random savior at the moment when the hero turns away for a couple of seconds, two dunce guards who do not notice the enemies, as well as betrayal love story and a happy ending with a kiss against the backdrop of a burning building.
Therefore, it is better, when you watch, not to take it seriously, but just enjoy the action.
On the one hand, the film looks like complete trash. Here you have a yakuza with a laser from his finger, and a crazy preacher - a cyborg, with a huge knife in the shape of a cross (here I remember Longo’s series “Crosses” - Crosses, 1992). But on the other hand, there is a subtle work with style. Longo knows his stuff. Not everything is so simple - there is something to appreciate here.
A Yakuza with a laser named Shinji - why did he end up missing a finger? U Japanese mafia There is a rule - if you have done something wrong before your boss, you must cut off your own finger. So, this killer, pursuing Johnny, turned his disadvantage into an advantage. The phalanx of the finger was replaced with an artificial tip, from which the villain takes out a molecular thread capable of instantly dismembering the human body (which, by the way, happens from time to time in the frame).
The film also shows the confrontation between the new and the old. The yakuza boss, played by Takeshi Kitano, honors traditions, knows Japanese perfectly, has samurai armor in his office, and even has human qualities - compassion and conscience. And his successor, the killer Shinji, is immoral, dishonest, does not know the Japanese language, and even betrays his boss for the sake of power.
The preacher who kills for money for new implants, brilliantly embodied by Dolph Lundgren, is an appropriation characteristic image a fanatical villain from Japanese animation (see appendix). It’s not for nothing that in one of the initial scenes – the scene of pumping information into Johnny’s head and the shootout – the anime “Demon City Shinjuku” is shown on TV. In general, in the film here and there they watch cartoons, films of the noir genre, etc. Longo once admitted that he loves watching cartoons - this is confirmed by his series about superheroes (Superheroes, 1998).
The theme of modified life and the theme of cyborgs were touched upon by the artist later in the project Yingxiong (Heroes), 2009. By the way, note that the episode is named with a Chinese word that translates to “hero.” Asian influence on technical progress recognized as an artist.
Longo creates an insane city in which the sun never shines (the environment is bad - there is a special dome over the city), society is divided into successful clerks from corporations and beggars from the slums dying of disease.
Characters use a variety of weapons - from huge futuristic pistols, knives and crossbows to grenade launchers. Weapon - important topic for Robert Longo (remember his project Bodyhammers and Death Star, 1993).
Visually, the film is pleasing to the eye. There are stylish, littered plans of the smoking tunnels and streets of future cities. You can see a creepy and interesting shot of severed fingers and vegetables on a cutting board. Or a mountain of switched on TV screens, personifying the madness of the information society.
A shot of a row of TVs with static, in front of which there are empty frames, makes me think - the TV is now in the frame of art. Artist Longo makes something from parts popular culture. In an interview he says that in the late 70s, early 80s art galleries were dead space, the place where he got inspiration was rock clubs and old cinemas. This culture was the artist's day source of nutrition.
One of the scenes shows night club of the future - kitschy hairstyles, crazy makeup, strange people, dancing to a rock aria, androgynous bodyguards, a bartender with an iron mechanical arm etc. The rebels from Lotex also look ridiculous - they wear dreadlocks, tattoos on their faces, they themselves are dirty and unsociable. And at their base they keep an intelligent dolphin named Jones (by the way, this intelligent dolphin was originally a drug addict, but later the scene with the dolphin taking drugs was cut out). Yes, in places it is unbridled trash, but it fits into the atmosphere of the film, into the atmosphere of cyberpunk.
You can even try to analyze the film using . Johnny Mnemonic wants to figure out who he is. Recall. Wake up. Ultimately, Johnny is faced with a choice - he learns that in his head there is a formula for a cure for black fever that can save millions of lives.
The key monologue of Keanu Reeves’ character – Johnny: “All my life I tried not to leave my corner, I didn’t have any problems. Enough for me! I don’t want to be in a trash heap, among last year’s newspapers and stray dogs. I want good service! I want a washed shirt from a hotel in Tokyo!” Johnny manages to cope with himself, saves humanity, finds his love - the beautiful chain-mail-wearing cyborg rock warrior Jane (Dina Meyer), and finds out who he is. His memory returned. He stopped being a blind vessel for other people's knowledge.
Johnny's mother turns out to be Anna Kalman, the founder of the Farmakom corporation, who died several years ago, but continues to live in the cybernet. Johnny's mother was played by Robert Longo's wife, Barbara Zukova. Thus, Longo, as a director, is even more justifiably the father of the film hero.
The issue of white collar workers - people from offices - has already been touched upon by Longo in his famous project- “People in cities.” Johnny can be seen as one of these "urban" people.
The film had a very active promotion - accompanying products were sold (T-shirts, etc.), a website was launched on the Internet, and computer game based on the film, and Gibson even appeared at various meetings with players and spectators. However, this did not even help recoup the budget. In wide release in the United States, Johnny Mnemonic grossed $19 million. Is it true, cult movie Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" also failed at the box office.
The film "Johnny Mnemonic" seems to us to be an important milestone. Later, the Wachowski brothers would quote him when creating their “Matrix” trilogy (the surname “Smith”, black suits, cyberspace, Keanu Reeves in leading role– fighting, running away, using meditation, Zen practices, etc.).
William Gibson compared the experience of making the film to taking a shower in a raincoat and trying to philosophize in Morse code. Longo says in an interview that it was a useful experience, but often he did not know how to set up those “damn cameras”, and he had to show what he wanted from the actors on himself in front of everyone film set of 50 people.
The funny thing is that most people from the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet know about Longo only from this film. Here, for example, is one of the typical comments about “Mnemonics”: “ The film was directed by Robert Longo, who besides this did not really make anything else, but his name cannot be forgotten due to this film».
Longo, as a postmodernist, refuses to distinguish between . It brings the previously underground cyberpunk genre into the mainstream. Johnny Mnemonic is a wonderful and atmospheric example of cyberpunk. This is a well-made mainstream movie. But it’s not as stupid as it seems at first glance.
Application:
Images of murderous priests.
- Preacher Carl, the cyborg from Johnny Mnemonic.
- Alexander Anderson, the character was created by mangaka (author of Japanese comics) Koto Hirano. Anderson is an operative of the thirteenth department of the Vatican - the Iscariot organization in the universe of the manga and anime "Hellsing". Negative character.
- Nicholas D. Wolfwood, known as Nicholas the Punisher, is a character created by manga artist Yasuhiro Naito, author of the manga Trigun. A priest who wields a large cross-shaped weapon. Positive character.
