Robert Longo
Tenth Anniversary Benefit for the Kitchen
1981

Name: Tenth Anniversary Benefit for the Kitchen
Brand: Robert Longo
Price: 3850 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Robert Longo Tenth Anniversary Benefit for the Kitchen, 1981 Color silkscreen on wove paper Pencil signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 119/300 on the front 28 x 18 inches Unframed Pencil signed and numbered from the edition of 300. This dazzling print was created as a fundraiser to promote the 10th Anniversary of The Kitchen (An Alternative Arts Space) in New York City, created in 1981 in connection with a benefit sale to celebrate The Kitchen's 10th Anniversary. Held at Paula Cooper Gallery, the sale included works by established and emerging artists and a series of scores and works on paper by composers, choreographers, and performance artists. It originally sold for US $5,000. Many years later, Robert Longo was honored by The Kitchen for his contribution to the arts. Another edition of this work is in the permanent collection of the Getty Archives - part of The Kitchen archives. More on the Kitchen: Founded in 1971 as an artist collective by pioneering video artists Steina and Woody Vasulka, The Kitchen was initially located in the unused kitchen of the former Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, serving as a response to the dearth of venues for new media. The Kitchen became a staging ground for experimental cross-disciplinary endeavors that were outside of what most other arts venues could provide. Near-daily programming included groundbreaking musical performances by Tony Conrad, Brian Eno, Jon Gibson, and the New York Dolls; poetry readings; seminars on art and technology; weekly open video screenings; video art festivals featuring the work of Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, and Stan Vanderbeek; and landmark exhibitions of visual artists such as the first solo show of Robert Mapplethorpe and the first presentation of Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills. A highlight of the collection is a series of rare, stylistically diverse posters designed by significant artists such as Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Robert Longo, and Kiki Smith that were originally pasted up around town as The Kitchen's primary means of event advertising. Acquired from the collection of artist Bill Radawec who got it from the 1981 Paula Cooper Gallery benefit for The Kitchen. Unframed and in very good condition. Published by: The Kitchen Pencil signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 300 on the front.

Creator:

Robert Longo (1953, American)

Creation Year:

1981

Dimensions:

Height: 28 in (71.12 cm)Width: 18 in (45.72 cm)

Medium:

Screen

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

1980-1989

Condition:

Gallery Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU1745212636482

View Invoice

Shop All Robert Longo

Robert Longo

The drawings by artist Robert Longo are a sensory experience: They are monumental, detailed and hard-hitting in their subject matter, which often includes critiques of power, social unrest and consumer capitalism.

Longo has spent his career exploring mediums as varied as the Photorealistic charcoal drawings for which he is best known and film direction. In all of his work, however, he draws inspiration from his deep background in sculpture. “I always think that drawing is a sculptural process. I always feel like I’m carving the image out rather than painting the image. I’m carving it out with erasers and tools like that,” he once said.

The Long Island, New York, native attended high school with a man who was shot at Kent State University while protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War in 1970, and the famous image of this man lying dead on the ground influenced Longo so deeply that he began to consider all art political. Longo attended Buffalo State College, where he met and became friends with artist Cindy Sherman, and later the two moved to New York City together.

Longo’s revered work includes his charcoal and graphite “Men in the Cities” drawings. The Photorealist series, which debuted at Metro Pictures gallery in Manhattan in 1981, depicted people in formal business clothing. Posing in suspended animation in unusual contortions, the figures take on a choreographic quality and represent the career-minded “yuppies” of the era.

“Men in the Cities” was inspired by punk rock music and decades later has been cited as a visual reference for the opening sequence of the popular television drama Mad Men. The work was among the most recognizable and iconic of the Pictures Generation — the movement by artists who came of age in the 1970s and were disillusioned by the social and political conditions of the time. In 2014, Longo created 12 charcoal drawings for a series titled “Gang of Cosmos,” which were black-and-white depictions of famous Abstract Expressionist works by artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Lee Krasner.

Through his provocative, detailed and highly precise prints, drawings, photography and sculpture, Longo continues to challenge traditional sources of power and authority.

Find original Robert Longo art on 1stDibs.