Untitled

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Untitled

Artist Robert Longo (American, born 1953)

Date1980

Dimensions(All 3) H: 65 in. (165.1 cm); W: 120 in. (304.8 cm); Depth: 7 in. (17.8 cm);
(Panel) H: 65 in. (165.1 cm); W: 37 1/4 in. (94.6 cm); Depth: 7 in. (17.8 cm)

MediumLacquer on cast aluminum bonding, in 3 parts

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, by exchange

Object number

2005.40A-C

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02A, Wolfe

Label Text“My major influences when I was growing up were television, definitely television (it was my babysitter), and sports, girls, cars, and toys. War toys in particular. High impact stuff—like sports and warfare.” — Robert Longo The twisting, anguished (or ecstatic?) figures of this wall sculpture seem helpless to resist the invisible forces that assault them. By freezing singular, non-consecutive movements, Robert Longo references the fast-cut editing of contemporary cinema and television, in which viewers might be given small snippets of action that together form an apparent—but not necessarily linear—narrative. The work relates to Longo’s series of drawings and sculptures titled “Men in the Cities” (1979–1983)—images of isolated young men (and sometimes women) in business suits that Longo called “doomed souls” and “fallen angels.” The “Men in the Cities” images have become so iconic that they have influenced everything from the original iPod ads of loose-limbed, silhouetted figures to the opening sequence of television show Mad Men.Exhibition HistoryCincinnati, The Contemporary Arts Center, Dynamix, March-April 1982.

Minneapolis, The Walker Art Center, Eight Artist's: The Anxious Edge, exh. cat. 1982, pp. 14, 15, 31. (Different piece actually exhibited)

Akron, Akron Art Museum, Robert Longo: Drawings and Reliefs, 1984, page unknown. (Different piece actually exhibited)