Robert Longo was born in Brooklyn, New York, where as a youth, he participated in various arts activities from a very young age. Longo developed an early fascination with all forms of mass media; especially movies, television, magazines, and comic books. These hallmark influences are still incorporated into the artwork that he is producing today.

Longo began his higher education at the University of North Texas, where he excelled in several different art forms. He received a grant to study art in Florence, Italy, and upon returning to the United States, he received a B.F.A in 1975 from State University College in Buffalo, New York.

In order to create his large figural drawings, most of which look very similar in style and subject matter to Edmund, Longo first projects photographs of his subjects onto paper and traces the figures in graphite, stripping away all details of the background. After he records the basic contours, his assistants continue work on the figure for about a week, filling in the details. Next, Longo goes back to the drawing, using a combination of graphite and charcoal, to provide, as he says, "all the cosmetic work." At this point, he makes a number of changes in the figure. Some are subtle: just a little more definition to a shoulder, perhaps, or a darker cast to the shoes. Others are radical: a subject, who in the original photo was wearing jeans, may finally sport a pair of formal black trousers in the drawing. Longo continues to work on the drawing making numerous adjustments until, about a week later, it is completed. He also creates lithographs, such as Edmund, which, as with his drawings, often involves studio assistants to do much of the basic work.

Works like Edmund challenge the viewer to decide if the subject is exuberant in his erratic movements or if he is traumatized by some unseen event taking place out of the spectator's range. Edmund is one of a series of prints and drawings, begun in 1981, the artist has referred to as "Men in the Cities." The noted New York art dealer Brook Alexander, a friend of the artist, "posed" for the print. Longo took his models up to his New York City studio rooftop and threw tennis balls at them in order to capture with his camera the twisted and contorted poses featured in many of his works. He also tied ropes to his models, then jerked them around suddenly to create the desired affect.
Longo's works are typically brash, eye-catching, and large-scale. In addition to drawing and sculpting, he works as a painter, printmaker, performance artist, and video artist. He currently lives and works in New York City.

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The MacNider Museum has recently acquired a screenprint by graffiti artist and pop culture communicator Keith Haring as a gift of Steven Sellergren in memory of his wife, Penny. The print, "Best Buddies", features two brightly colored figures with their arms around each other's shoulders. Haring's signature "radiant" lines emanating from their heads accentuate their camaraderie and affection.

Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York street culture of the 1980s. Growing up in small town Pennsylvania, Haring developed a love for drawing at an early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and popular culture, especially Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. After studying graphic design in Pittsburgh, Haring moved to New York. Here he found a thriving alternative art community developing outside the gallery and museum system in the downtown streets, subways, and spaces in clubs and former dance halls. He became friends with fellow artists Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat as well as the musicians, performance artists, and graffiti writers of the burgeoning art community. Haring was swept up in the energy and spirit of this scene and began to organize and participate in exhibitions and performances at Club 57 and other alternative venues. He first gained public attention with his subway chalk drawings, sometimes creating as many as 40 drawings in a day, as he engaged with spectators. During this time the "Radiant Baby" became his symbol.

During a brief but intense career that spanned the 1980s, Haring's work was featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions. His art attracted a wide audience through his expression of universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex, and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message. Haring's imagery has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century.

Keith Haring died in 1990 of an HIV-related disease at the age of 31. The Keith Haring Foundation, established in 1989, continues his legacy of giving to children's organizations and promoting AIDS awareness. Today Haring's work can be seen in the exhibitions and collections of museums around the world. The MacNider Museum is pleased to be among them.

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The MacNider Art Museum is the recent recipient of an evocative print by Davenport, Iowa artist, Katie Kiley. Niwa-in/Bûtadérmera (Warding Off Evil), features a torso clothed in a simple white garment. The v-neck of the garment, the center fold in the fabric, and the arms of the figure draw the eye to expressive hands formed into a mudra of protection. A mudra is a symbolic gesture usually made with the hand or fingers. Each mudra has a specific quality that is said to be imparted to the practitioner. Mudras are a central part of both Hindu and Buddhist iconography.

Kiley states that her art is about communication; the need to share something important and personal. For years, she has searched for imagery that conveys the thoughts, emotions, and spiritual insights that fascinate her. This search has led her to explore the imagery of the hand. She is particularly intrigued with gestures and their meaning. Her most recent work has explored the iconography of specific sacred gestures; mudras, picture tools for the identification of deeper meanings. Kiley says that above all, she loves to draw the figure. "I delight in the infinite beauty of the human form; the bones and muscles, the skin and hair, all the intricacies of the eyes, the ears, the mouth." When she is drawing from life, she is particularly attentive to intimate gestures; moving, leaning toward the other, touching, trembling . . . those gestures that attest to an intrinsic communication that needs no words. Her goal is to capture physical and poignant conversations that are universal, timeless and infinitely nourishing.

Kiley used the intaglio (in-TAL-yo) method in making this print. Intaglio prints are made by using a plate of copper or zinc in which the artist incises grooves to create the design. Ink is then pressed into the grooves and any excess is removed with a dabber, muslin, and by hand. Paper is dampened and passed through a press with rollers.

The MacNider is pleased to have a work by an Iowa artist of such visual strength and emotional depth to enhance its permanent collection of American art.

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Barbara Morgan, Martha Graham - Letter to the World (The Kick), Photography, 1940.
Gift of Mr. L. Bradley Camp (via Ackerman Foundation)

 

Perhaps the most recognizable work in the MacNider Art Museum's collection of American photography is Barbara Morgan's silver gelatin print of modern dance innovator Martha Graham. Graham's ballet, Letter to the World, began with two figures dressed in white, both representing the writer, Emily Dickinson. One figure spoke the words of Dickinson's poetry as she witnessed the other Emily (Graham), dance the inner landscape of the poet. In Martha Graham - Letter to the World (The Kick), Morgan effectively uses dark and light, negative and positive space, and a dynamic sensation of movement to capture the essence of modern dance.

Initially trained as a painter, Morgan took up photography in the mid 1920's after realizing its artistic potential through seeing the work of Edward Weston. From the beginning, Morgan was inclined to explore the rhythmic motions of her subjects. Early in her career she was attracted to modern art. It is not surprising that she was drawn to the developing field of modern dance. In the United States, modern dance, perhaps more than any other art form, provided artists with fresh ideas to explore. Photography, too, was ripe for experimentation in the 1920's, through manipulated images of photo-montage, light drawings using photographic processing, and other constructed forms of image-making.

In 1935, Morgan met modern dance pioneer Martha Graham; the two women found they shared a common approach and immediately decided to work together, with Morgan photographing Graham's dance company over the next five years for an award-winning book. The shoots were preceded by conversations between the two, and hours of Morgan observing the dance works in actual theater performances. Morgan selected particular moments from the flow of peaks and repetitions throughout the dance, which to her, captured its essence. Working with Graham and the dancers, she recreated these moments in the studio and based her photographs on the results.

Morgan's dance photographs rank among the classic experiments of Modern American Expressionistic photographic art. Photographic meaning for Expressionist photography extends beyond the photograph and becomes a symbol articulating personal vision and cultural values. Thus photography from an Expressionist's point of view is not essentially a vehicle for documentation, but frequently aims at a metaphorical interpretation of its subject. Expressionists such as Morgan advocate the separation of the medium as a fine art from its functional and casual "snapshot" tradition.

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