jan 1, 2015 - Untitled (Guernica Redacted) | Robert Longo

Description:

Robert Longo (born 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer and musician.
Guernica Redacted is part of the exhibition Picasso Redacted, which is assembled from charcoal and graphite drawings of Robert Longo, a follow up to the 2015 exhibition Picasso: In the Studio of Cahiers d’Art. In the painting, heavy black vertical charcoal stripes fracture Picasso’s (already fractured) composition by cutting through the entire picture. Longo feels that photographs and films influenced Picasso while painting the original artwork. He describes his intervention with the stripes as redacting content from the picture, as if it’s too gruesome to be seen or refused to be seen all at once, at the same time calling to attention what’s been blocked.

The stripes resemble filmstrips and prison bars, as well as reduction of secret correspondence.

After experimenting with numerous versions, Longo went with the one where there are six black charcoal strips with various widths blocking and redacting content from the image of Guernica. “To undermine is to create a space where people can see what they can’t see or choose to ignore” Longo says.

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