Robert Longo - Cast Bronze Black Flag (Study for the Bullet or the Ballot)

Year: 1991
Medium: Graphite on paper
Titled lower left
Size: 13 x 17.25 in (33 x 43.8 cm)
Frame Size: 19.5 x 23.5 in (49.5 x 59.7 cm)
Price on request

Robert Longo Flag, work on paper
Framed image of Robert Longo flag

In addition to his broader interest in mass media, art history, and popular culture, Longo is fascinated by the iconography of power and of violence, a fascination that is perhaps most poignant in his Black Flags series. These works – distressed and blackened American flags – are considered to be some of Longo’s more political. 

Although many of his works are based on photographs, Longo’s works are informed by his detailed drawings – transformed and transmuted through his mind’s eye. This drawing is a study for one of the aforementioned Black Flags, titled larger-than-life “The Bullet or the Ballot.”