SAKS presents the first solo exhibition in Switzerland of the American artist Robert Longo: beauty and force of destruction merge in his impressive charcoal works.

Darkness, violence, the evocation of destruction – the works of Robert Longo are the vector of deep and primitive emotions anchored in the collective unconscious and in the conscious of each individual.  Charcoal sculpts literally the outsized paper:  the chiselled strokes, of classical aspect, give his drawings a three-dimensional quality, the gamut of black exacerbates the dramatic dimension:  the artist confronts the spectator with a radical elegant vision.

Representation of representation, the drawings explore the iconography of popular culture, probe the power of the photographic image, and scrutinize the image of the authority of power and of its instruments.

Robert Longo draws the dramatic and violent energy contained in his works from the sources of No Wave:  an underground movement, nihilistic and provocative, originating in 1977 in the Lower East Side of New York.  It arose from the ashes of the hippie and flower people generation and conceptual art.  He actively participated in this explosive moment of experimentation, both musical and artistic, of which the shock wave is still being felt today. The energy and power of the No Wave period became the fuel for the creative motor of Robert Longo.

In parallel to the exhibition, the photographs of Catherine Ceresole’s New York period bear witness to the emulation of these unrestrained and provocative No Wave years which reigned on the scenes of experimental music concerts – a fusion of free jazz with punk and funk – epicentres of improvisation, dissonance and deconstruction.

Exhibition in collaboration with the Metro Pictures gallery, New York.

The Artist's website www.robertlongo.com