Robin Rhode
Robin Rhode is a Berlin-based South African multidisciplinary artist who engages a variety of visual languages such as photography, performance, drawing and sculpture to create arrestingly beautiful narratives that are brought to life using quotidian materials such as soap, charcoal, chalk and paint. Coming of age in a newly post-apartheid South Africa, Rhode was exposed to new forms of creative expression motivated by the spirit of the individual rather than dictated by a political or social agenda.
The growing influence of hip-hop, film, and popular sports on youth culture as well as the community’s reliance on storytelling in the form of colorful murals encouraged the development of Rhode’s hybrid street-based aesthetic. His strategic interventions transform urban landscapes into imaginary worlds, compressing space and time, as two-dimensional renderings become the subject of three-dimensional interactions by a sole protagonist, usually played by the artist or by an actor inhabiting the role of artist. Melding individual expressionism with broader socio-economic concerns, Rhode’s work reveals a mastery of illusion, a rich range of historical and contemporary references, and an innate skill for blending high and low art forms.
"In many ways I kind of embrace the siege mentality of a street artist. And the street is somehow like these blank pages of a book that needs to tell a story. It's like a story that hasn't been told... I'm just a narrator of the street."--Robin Rhode
COLLECTIONS
Arquipelago – Centro de Artes Contemporaneas, Azores, Portugal
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
BHP Billiton South African Art Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Collection Frac Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France
Collection Martin Z. Margulies, Miami, FL
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
Ebrahim Melamed, Honart Museum Collection, Tehran, Iran
George Economou Collection, Athens, Greece
General Mills Art Collection, Minneapolis, MN
Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany
Gordon Schachat Collection, Johannesburg, South Africa
Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
Julia Stoschek Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany
LACMA – Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Lauren and Benedikt Taschen Collection, Los Angeles, CA
Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH), Paris, France
Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
MTV Networks, New York, NY
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norway
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA
Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL
The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
The Sender Collection, New York, NY
The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN