Robin Rhode
Robin Rhode, born 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa, lives and works in Berlin and Johannesburg. Robin Rhode is known for his inventive fusion of drawing, performance, photography, and street art. He creates narrative sequences in which he interacts with chalk or charcoal drawings on public walls, capturing the resulting actions in staged photographs. His work often explores themes of identity, urban space, and play, drawing from his experiences growing up in post-apartheid South Africa. By merging ephemeral street interventions with meticulously composed visual storytelling, Rhode challenges traditional boundaries between media and reimagines the role of the artist in public space.
Robin Rhode Editions
Spade For Spade
2009
From Forty Are Better Than One
10-part leporello, digital pigment print (Ditone) on 260 g Hahnemühle Baryta paper, 250 x 32 cm (98½ x 12½ in). Edition: 75, signed and numbered.
This edition is part of Robin Rhode’s larger Walk Off series – a term borrowed from basketball that, for the artist, signifies the final frame that “walks the viewer off” the work. In this photographic sequence, Rhode performs a fictional act: wielding a real spade, he mimics the physical motion of digging into the wall. However, the "dirt" that seems to scatter from each impact is a chalk drawing, blending performance with illusion. As in much of his work, Rhode temporarily claims public space, drawing everyday objects in chalk before interacting with them – here, turning a two-dimensional sketch into a performative gesture. This interplay between drawing and performance is central to Rhode’s practice: the imagined becomes real because he treats it as such. Spade for Spade reflects Rhode’s unique ability to weave narratives from the textures of Johannesburg’s urban life, where cultural symbolism, street aesthetics, and absurdity collide in a language that is both playful and politically charged.
EUR 850
Car on Bricks
2008
From Wall Works
Wall drawing in black paint or charcoal, and bricks. Size variable but close to the original size of the car depicted. Different models of cars out of which one or several car drawings can be installed. Limited to 15 installations, with a signed and numbered certificate giving specific instructions for on-site installation.
Robin Rhode’s Car on Bricks edition is a wall installation that fuses drawing and sculpture in a characteristically witty and socially charged gesture. A full-scale outline of a car is drawn directly onto the wall in black paint or charcoal, its illusionary presence interrupted only by two stacks of real bricks where the wheels would be – evoking the familiar sight of a stripped vehicle left on blocks in an urban environment. The piece plays with the boundary between image and object, between fiction and lived experience. By combining the ephemeral quality of a wall drawing with the physicality of actual bricks, Rhode transforms a symbol of mobility and status into a static, almost tragicomic scene. As in much of his work, Car on Bricks draws from the visual language of Johannesburg’s streets, reflecting on issues of ownership, disenfranchisement, and everyday survival. The work is simultaneously humorous and poignant, inviting viewers to reflect on the socio-economic realities embedded in the most mundane urban encounters.
This work is part of the collection of the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin.
EUR 12,000
Walk Off
2007
Published for Haus der Kunst, Munich
Pair of shoes, cast in charcoal and chalk, in box, 12.5 x 33.5 x 20 cm (5 x 13 x 8 in). Additionally, a blank piece of rag paper to create your own "action drawing". Edition of 40, signed and numbered on label in box lid.
With his Walk Off edition, Robin Rhode transforms a simple pair of shoes into a sculptural and performative object loaded with conceptual weight. Cast in charcoal and chalk – materials Rhode frequently uses in his wall drawings – these opposing black and white shoes are both delicate and symbolic. They come with a sheet of blank rag paper, inviting the viewer to activate the work by creating their own “action drawing,” echoing Rhode’s own performative practice. The shoes reference a large-scale performance at Haus der Kunst in 2007, where 88 similar pairs were used to choreograph a rhythmic, mark-making dance across space. Here, the miniature edition distills that ephemeral act into a tactile relic. Walk Off, a term borrowed from basketball and used by Rhode to signify the final step or image in a sequence, becomes a poetic metaphor for movement, transition, and the artist’s enduring interplay between drawing, body, and urban narrative.
EUR 1,800
