Robert Longo returns to Japan for first solo exhibition in 30 years

Pace presents Angels of the Maelstrom, an exhibition of new and recent charcoal drawings and sculptures by Robert Longo, at its Tokyo gallery from April 16 to June 17. In this presentation, which marks his first solo exhibition in Japan in three decades, Longo examines the cultural influences and exchanges between Japan and America and how the two cultures have shaped his work. His last solo exhibition in Japan was his 1995 retrospective at Tokyo’s Isetan Museum of Art, which traveled to Ashikaga City Museum and Osaka’s Kirin Plaza Art Space. Over the past decade, the artist has increasingly turned his focus to images from the media, including coverage of the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the Black Lives Matter movement. Building up his hyper realistic, black-and-white charcoal drawings in layers with painstaking attention to light and shadow, he creates highly detailed works based on news photography as well as images of protests, civil unrest, and war on the In