21.01.2025

Robin Rhode lives and works in Berlin since 2002.

Robin Rhode was born 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa. The Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist engages in a variety of visual languages such as photography, performance, drawing, painting, 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 music, film, and popular sports on youth culture as well as the community’s reliance on storytelling in the form of colourful 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.

Rhode has had major solo and group exhibitions at a number of important museums around the world such as Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA, Museum Voorlinden, Netherlands, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart Berlin, Germany, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, Hayward Gallery, London, UK, The Drawing Center, New York. Furthermore, Rhode has participated at 51st International Venice Biennale, Italy, Biennale of Sydney, Australia, The New Orleans Biennial, USA, Moscow Biennale, Russia, Yokohama Triennale, Japan, Taipei Biennale, Taiwan, Busan Biennale, South Korea. Rhode's work in public collections: Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, France, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy, Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin/Düsseldorf, Germany, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH), Paris, France, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, Pérez Art Museum Miami, USA, Los Angeles county Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa.