I held off on discussing Mark Lombardi until now because I think he is the perfect artist to help us segue from our initial discussion of politically engaged artwork to our next conversation, which will focus squarely on drawing. Lombardi's work was intensely concerned with the political, and his enormous drawings were an attempt to see clearly the complex interrelations at the heart of the major financial and political scandals of the time (Iran-Contra, Keating Savings and Loan, BCCI, etc.) This article, written by his dealer, is a brief inside look at how central a role drawing itself played in Lombardi's approach to his work, and insists how necessary it is to see the works as drawings.
Personally, I think that the drawings that Lombardi completed in the 6 short years before his death in 2000 are the most perfect artworks of the 1990's.
I'm getting into these Jain cosmology drawings lately and Mark Lomdardi's work seems related. Also connected: Loren Munk, Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida, whose work is discussed in a recent review here. But these worlds seem small compared to the Jains', even though the art is just as big.
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