Robert Longo: Searchers (Pace)

Pace and Thaddaeus Ropac present Searchers, a two-part exhibition of new work by Robert Longo, on view from October 9 at both Pace and Thaddaeus Ropac’s London galleries.
Each presentation will include a new Combine—monumental, five-panel multimedia wall works that return to the artist’s 1981-89 series of the same name—in addition to a large-scale charcoal drawing, a small graphite drawing, and a film. By rupturing and reassembling the symbols of a collective cultural mythology, these works advance Longo’s long-standing investigation into the relationship between the individual to society.
Robert Longo is widely recognized for his ambitiously scaled, hyperrealistic charcoal drawings. These monochromatic works often depict images from art historical sources, as well as scenes of protest, civil unrest, violence, war, and other social and political events. A key figure in the Pictures Generation of the 1970s and 1980s, his critical relationship to the media culture of his formative years has only intensified amid ever-more sophisticated methods of image distribution and an increasingly tumultuous global climate. Sourcing from television, film, news photography, personal photographs, and the internet, Longo carefully selects, alters, and enlarges these images, freezing their immediacy through the deliberate, time-intensive process of drawing. In doing so, he prompts viewers to reconsider their roles as consumers within today’s image-saturated landscape.