Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode
Rhode in New York City, 2015
Born	1976 (age 40–41) Cape Town, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Occupation	artist

Robin Rhode (born 1976 in Cape Town) is a South African artist based in Berlin, Germany. He studied Fine Art at Technikon Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, followed by a postgraduate program at the South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance (AFDA).

Rhode is a multidisciplinary artist who engages in 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 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. Rhode often returns to his native South Africa, creating work in the streets of Johannesburg. An outstanding characteristic of his works is his addressing of social concerns in a playful and productive manner, incorporating these issues into his practice without simplifying or judging them.

Rhode is represented by Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong;Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (South Africa);Studio Per L'Arte Contemporanea Tucci Russo, Torre Pellice (Italy). and kamel mennour, Paris and London.

Reminiscent of practices of street art, Rhode usually works in public spaces, using walls, public basketball courts or just the street as his "canvas". His preferred materials are easily accessible ones like charcoal and paint. As a result, his works stand out through their simplicity and their formal clarity, emphasising the idea over lavishness of production. Rhode transforms simple shapes into elements of narratives, interacting with only imagined presences. This narrative practice goes back to an initiation ritual at South African high schools – that Rhode himself experienced – where new students are forced to draw and interact with their drawing. Rhode's reference to this event takes this social gesture further into a playful mode of addressing cultural phenomena. Rhode also pays homage to the fervent utopian ideals of the Bauhaus, implicating Oskar Schlemmer's seminal Triadic Ballet from the twenties, a performance experiment created in the Bauhaus studios in the absence of a theatre space, balancing "emotional impulses" with an agenda of political agitation. His drawings of objects like a bicycle, a motorbike, a car, or of abstract shapes and patterns are employed as physical elements in a story, often alluding to the act of creation itself.