SOUTH AFRICAN ART POST 1994: THE DEMOCRATIC ERA
Robin Rhode
THE ARTIST
The coloured South African performance artist, born in Cape Town in
1976, and raised in Johannesburg studied fine art at the Technikon
Witwatersrand (1998), followed by the South African School of Film,
Television, and Dramatic Art. He was part of the first post-apartheid
generation of South African artists.
His work has been displayed on five continents; he has had solo exhibitions at the Haus der
Kunst in Munich, the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, and the Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo, among others. Institutions that have featured
Rhode’s work include the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington
D.C., and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
SHORT SUMMARY:
Urban walls are his canvas. Using chalk, paint, charcoal and even soap and utilizing clear
and simple language of form, he draws the sets for his performances, capturing the action
in photos or on videos. He utilizes techniques of illusion, melding individual expression with
broader and deeper social concerns. Hip-hop, film, popular sports and street murals were
his influence as a youth. The artist becomes a performer, a street interventionist. At other
times he uses a doppelganger (body double), Kevin Narain, to represent him in the works.
Page 1 of 19
,When in Johannesburg he uses the same wall as his platform and often engages the
community around him, to interact with his fleeting images. Rhode's photographs capture
the interaction between the static (the design/2-dimensional imagery) and the moving (the
performer). His street paintings meditate on the violence and trauma he has witnessed in
deprived neighbourhoods of Johannesburg. But from the start he has consciously used
humour to address political issues in a subtle and playful way.
HIS WORK
Walls & ground / Performative drawings / Charcoal, Chalk, Paint /Documents: photos and
videos
Robin Rhode works predominantly on walls or on the ground mostly in public spaces,
documenting his performative drawings – done in charcoal, chalk or paint - with
photographs and videos.
Page 2 of 19
,Public realm / new audience / Also gallery walls
He mostly creates performances or produces wall
pieces in the urban public realm, so that his
audience is not just the museum and gallery
viewers but also the unassuming audience, the
public, on their way to work, commuting by bus
or by public transport, or people that are
occupying the streets who are homeless. “My
intention is to allow for a new audience and a
new participatory experience for people who do
not visit the “white cube” (museum and gallery
spaces) and who don’t access the ideas of
contemporary art or contemporary culture as
such. Here, at least, they’re exposed to a
contemporary process with regards to my
practice.” However, besides producing these
photographic (lens-based) work on exterior walls,
he also draws with charcoal or paint on gallery
spaces - to activate the walls inside the “white
cube” – bringing the street inside.
Drawing & body integrated / High school ritual / Apartheid
Robin Rhode’s artistic work is characterised by a colourful diversity in which the drawing
and body are the focal point. He paints three-dimensional chalk drawings on walls and
streets and integrates himself (or a body double) as an active agent into these images.
This artistic practice can be found in a personal experience borne out of the politics and
history of his experiences living within the Apartheid system. There was no art education in
his high-school, and little in the way of instructional creative expression for students.
Instead students created their own visual language. As part of an initiation ritual into high-
school, new students were made to draw an object, like a bike, on the toilet wall with a
Page 3 of 19
, piece of chalk and interact with their drawings in front of the older students. While the act
was aimed at ridiculing the younger student, it was a humorous way of establishing
hierarchy and power. Rhode merges this “childish bullying” practice with both graffiti
culture and high art in his work. A reminder of the trauma of apartheid that had become a
permanent part of his identity.
Street-art Aesthetic / Youth Street culture / Socially
troubled areas of JHB
Although he now lives in Berlin (Germany), the past and
present of South Africa and of the “coloured” communities
in SA remain an important element of his works. His work is
shaped by a street-art aesthetic and the youth street culture
of the socially troubled areas of Johannesburg, where he
grew up. Rhode turned 18 in a newly post-apartheid South
Africa, when youth culture was under the growing influence
of hip-hop, film, and sports. These influences, alongside the
community’s use of storytelling in the form of colourful
murals and graffiti, encouraged the development of his hybrid street-based aesthetic. “We
were a generation that was trying to find our own global presence—to do so, we were
assimilating signs and codes from around the world, but mostly from the United States. I
think a lot of it was positive, because it opened up possibilities for people—it showed that
there’s more than one way to live. There are so many ways to define oneself, and to define
one’s own society.”
Spontaneous / abstract geometric shapes / simple everyday objects / hybrid aesthetic
The artist’s explosively colourful drawings and wall compositions, which take shape more or
less spontaneously during the
performances, can include
acrobatic as well as melancholic
and romantic elements. He often
interacts (like an “actor”) with
abstract geometric shapes or
simple everyday objects (e.g.
Page 4 of 19
Robin Rhode
THE ARTIST
The coloured South African performance artist, born in Cape Town in
1976, and raised in Johannesburg studied fine art at the Technikon
Witwatersrand (1998), followed by the South African School of Film,
Television, and Dramatic Art. He was part of the first post-apartheid
generation of South African artists.
His work has been displayed on five continents; he has had solo exhibitions at the Haus der
Kunst in Munich, the Perry Rubenstein Gallery in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, and the Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo, among others. Institutions that have featured
Rhode’s work include the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington
D.C., and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
SHORT SUMMARY:
Urban walls are his canvas. Using chalk, paint, charcoal and even soap and utilizing clear
and simple language of form, he draws the sets for his performances, capturing the action
in photos or on videos. He utilizes techniques of illusion, melding individual expression with
broader and deeper social concerns. Hip-hop, film, popular sports and street murals were
his influence as a youth. The artist becomes a performer, a street interventionist. At other
times he uses a doppelganger (body double), Kevin Narain, to represent him in the works.
Page 1 of 19
,When in Johannesburg he uses the same wall as his platform and often engages the
community around him, to interact with his fleeting images. Rhode's photographs capture
the interaction between the static (the design/2-dimensional imagery) and the moving (the
performer). His street paintings meditate on the violence and trauma he has witnessed in
deprived neighbourhoods of Johannesburg. But from the start he has consciously used
humour to address political issues in a subtle and playful way.
HIS WORK
Walls & ground / Performative drawings / Charcoal, Chalk, Paint /Documents: photos and
videos
Robin Rhode works predominantly on walls or on the ground mostly in public spaces,
documenting his performative drawings – done in charcoal, chalk or paint - with
photographs and videos.
Page 2 of 19
,Public realm / new audience / Also gallery walls
He mostly creates performances or produces wall
pieces in the urban public realm, so that his
audience is not just the museum and gallery
viewers but also the unassuming audience, the
public, on their way to work, commuting by bus
or by public transport, or people that are
occupying the streets who are homeless. “My
intention is to allow for a new audience and a
new participatory experience for people who do
not visit the “white cube” (museum and gallery
spaces) and who don’t access the ideas of
contemporary art or contemporary culture as
such. Here, at least, they’re exposed to a
contemporary process with regards to my
practice.” However, besides producing these
photographic (lens-based) work on exterior walls,
he also draws with charcoal or paint on gallery
spaces - to activate the walls inside the “white
cube” – bringing the street inside.
Drawing & body integrated / High school ritual / Apartheid
Robin Rhode’s artistic work is characterised by a colourful diversity in which the drawing
and body are the focal point. He paints three-dimensional chalk drawings on walls and
streets and integrates himself (or a body double) as an active agent into these images.
This artistic practice can be found in a personal experience borne out of the politics and
history of his experiences living within the Apartheid system. There was no art education in
his high-school, and little in the way of instructional creative expression for students.
Instead students created their own visual language. As part of an initiation ritual into high-
school, new students were made to draw an object, like a bike, on the toilet wall with a
Page 3 of 19
, piece of chalk and interact with their drawings in front of the older students. While the act
was aimed at ridiculing the younger student, it was a humorous way of establishing
hierarchy and power. Rhode merges this “childish bullying” practice with both graffiti
culture and high art in his work. A reminder of the trauma of apartheid that had become a
permanent part of his identity.
Street-art Aesthetic / Youth Street culture / Socially
troubled areas of JHB
Although he now lives in Berlin (Germany), the past and
present of South Africa and of the “coloured” communities
in SA remain an important element of his works. His work is
shaped by a street-art aesthetic and the youth street culture
of the socially troubled areas of Johannesburg, where he
grew up. Rhode turned 18 in a newly post-apartheid South
Africa, when youth culture was under the growing influence
of hip-hop, film, and sports. These influences, alongside the
community’s use of storytelling in the form of colourful
murals and graffiti, encouraged the development of his hybrid street-based aesthetic. “We
were a generation that was trying to find our own global presence—to do so, we were
assimilating signs and codes from around the world, but mostly from the United States. I
think a lot of it was positive, because it opened up possibilities for people—it showed that
there’s more than one way to live. There are so many ways to define oneself, and to define
one’s own society.”
Spontaneous / abstract geometric shapes / simple everyday objects / hybrid aesthetic
The artist’s explosively colourful drawings and wall compositions, which take shape more or
less spontaneously during the
performances, can include
acrobatic as well as melancholic
and romantic elements. He often
interacts (like an “actor”) with
abstract geometric shapes or
simple everyday objects (e.g.
Page 4 of 19
