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Robert Longo’s charcoal drawings resist traditional expectations of medium. His process often begins with a photographic image found online, which he will amplify, re-compose, or juxtapose with other images before translating into charcoal. In layers of fragile black dust, Longo builds remarkably sculptural, meticulously detailed forms at an imposing scale unusual for drawing. 

The striking finished artwork is a meditation on how we digest images—and what they tell us about the world—using technical innovation to emphasize their power and complexity.

Together spanning four centuries and three continents, Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746–1828), Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), and contemporary American artist Robert Longo (born 1953) each witnessed a turbulent transition from one era to another and the profound repercussions of revolution, war, and civil unrest. Within a broad chronological framework, Proof traces the historical lineage of a visual language and artistic impulse.

In addition to charcoal drawings addressing current events, Robert Longo frequently delves into art history. With almost forensic interest, Longo tries to access the process—and perhaps the thoughts and energy—of artists he admires. In recent years he has translated several paintings into meticulous black and white charcoal drawings both monumental and diminutive. He has also created drawings from the revealing x-rays—provided by museum conservators—of iconic paintings, like his haunting version of Titian’s 1555 Venus With a Mirror (top), showing an abandoned horizontal composition of a couple, complete with the nails in the canvas.

Posted by Sara Softness

Known for his filmmaking, Sergei Eisenstein was also a prolific illustrator and cartoonist. Before turning to film he studied engineering, then worked in graphic arts and theater production. For the remainder of his career, drawing was integral to his process of filmmaking; his rarely-seen sketches showcase his elaborate storyboarding, where he maps out each shot’s composition, mass, and rhythm, as well as sets and costumes.

Join artist, journalist, and activist Molly Crabapple on Saturday, October 14 as she sets her Artist’s Eye on Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, Robert Longo. Known for her illustrated reportage on Occupy Wall Street, the Greek economic crisis, and Guantanamo Bay, Crabapple will respond to the works of Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, and Robert Longo on view in the exhibition.

Part of our series of intimate talks by contemporary artists that illuminates our special exhibitions with fresh and alternative perspectives. 

The Brooklyn Museum’s collection includes a rare “trial proof” set of Goya’s Los Caprichos print series, the famed indictment of the superstition and corruption of late 18th-century Spanish society; thirteen are currently on view in Proof. Early impressions made before the first published edition, these prints showcase extraordinarily clarity and velvety tone. These particular examples were handled by Goya himself, as certain elements were later changed in the final version. His masterful handling of the technique comes through in dramatic contrasts between light and dark and many varied surface textures, hiding subtle details in the myriad shades of grey.

Proof asks viewers to examine how artists bear witness: how do Goya, Eisenstein, and Longo’s imaginative chronicles tell stories with non-documentary means? Goya reported, without experiencing first hand, the horrific brutalities of the Peninsular War (1808-14). Eisenstein’s symbolic imagery spoke volumes--here, abandoned boats in an otherworldly frozen lake, foreshadowing the epic battle on the ice of 1242 that “Alexander Nevsky” details. Longo, instead, uses symbolism to wonder at what someone else has witnessed: this decorative figurine is from Freud’s Vienna apartment—now a museum—which he fled in 1938 to escape the Nazis.

These images of menace retain a uniquely human empathy. Goya’s Spaniards huddle under blankets on a tree branch, likely representing the artist’s fear of King Ferdinand VII’s renewed conservatism, having abolished Spain’s first liberal Constitution in 1814. Similarly teetering between hope and despair, the iconic still from Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin shows a mother clutching her son, defiant against the Cossack officers and their civilian massacre. Longo’s destroyed Assyrian sculpture refers to an attack of cultural vandalism, but nonetheless offers a poignant personal detail in the top left—a figure in their house slippers.