The unsettling issues of our time rendered in virtuosic charcoal lines

Charcoal Vol. II presents the charcoal drawings of American artist Robert Longo from 2012 to the present. This large- format, elaborately designed catalogue, printed on natural paper using a tritone process, bound in half linen represents a continuation of the first volume; together they form a comprehensive compendium of this central oeuvre by the legendary New York artist, who was a key figure in founding the Pictures Generation in the 1980s.

In this new catalogue, essays by Tim Griffin and Haley Mellin address the existential questions of our time that are at the heart of these new, large-scale, hyperrealistic drawings: war, violence, capitalism, the rising division of American society, the possibilities of political protest and individual freedom in the face of the overwhelming power of the media.

ROBERT LONGO (*1953, Brooklyn) is one of the most influential artists of American postmodernism. After graduating from the State University College in Buffalo, New York, in 1975, he became one of the central protagonists of the Pictures Generation. Despite the diversity of their individual positions, this loose group around artists Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, David Salle, Richard Prince, Jack Goldstein, and Sherrie Levine is characterized by its use of already existing images referencing mass media and pop culture. Longo lives and works in New York.