Lombardi's Web

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While the rest of the art world was consumed with identity politics and free-for-all "pluralism," Lombardi's work was an austere and solitary island. In part because of the obvious disparity between his complex mapping of politics and economics and the typical work of the rest of the New York art world, Lombardi seemed to be on the cusp of real art world stardom.

"I think he was due for a significant step into fame," Richard says. "And I also think that success would have created an interesting context for change in the work. It would have been fascinating to see him extend the use of 'corporate vernacular,' as he called it, to tackle things like 9/11 or Enron, or even to grapple with the change in his own finances."

Lombardi's big break seemed to come when he was invited to show BCCI-ICIC-FAB, c. 1972-1991 (4th version), a drawing narrating the collapse of the monumentally corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce, International, at the Museum of Modern Art's P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center's Greater New York group show in February 2000. While it was a huge step forward in his art career, everything wasn't necessarily perfect for Lombardi. He battled with depression -- which friends speculate was at least partly influenced by the truths he learned about in his work -- and he drank excessively. He also experienced a crushing string of bad luck in the spring of 2000, culminating in the sprinkler system in his studio malfunctioning a mere 10 days before the Greater New York opening, destroying several drawings, including the one scheduled to show at P.S. 1. Although he remade the piece in time for the show, the strain of working so quickly may have put him over the edge.

He was found hanged from his ceiling less than a month after the opening of Greater New York.

There's a temptation to construct elaborate theories that Lombardi was killed by the same shadowy -- and-not-so-shadowy -- figures his artwork revealed, but no one gives such speculation much currency. According to friends and acquaintances, Lombardi was unhappy, maybe a little manic-depressive, and definitely a lot obsessive. And he's seriously missed by the close-knit community of artists and art professionals in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

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