Study of Ferguson Riot Cops

This emotionally charged image is based on press photographs of the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri, protest movement in response to Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a police officer. Police in riot gear, silhouetted in darkness and smoke, approach the viewer in a formidable line. This work is a preparatory drawing for a large-scale version in the collection of The Broad Museum in Los Angeles. Robert Longo belongs to a generation of artists that emerged in the 1970s who appropriate existing images and historical artworks. Their works question ideas of authorship, originality, and how meaning changes through reproduction. In recent years, Longo has focused increasingly on current events, including in this work.