‘I didn’t want to make art, I wanted to become it.'
Robin Rhode came of age in post-apartheid Johannesburg. Heavily influenced by hip-hop music, graffiti art, and Western sports, his multi-disciplinary work frequently references these influences, which are commonly and stereotypically associated with young black men. Rhode has been based in Berlin since 2002. In advance of his performances, he often makes preparatory drawings and practices in his German studio, then returns to the streets and walls of Johannesburg to create the works. He executes carefully planned, temporary murals on concrete walls or sidewalks; then he, or one of his assistant performers, is photographed interacting with the drawn objects, seemingly altering the two-dimensional renderings. Click here to learn more about how Rhode involves his hometown’s youth community in his street art and performances.
In White Walls, Rhode spray paints the form of a two-dimensional car onto a black and white wall, his bright red shirt the only pop of color in each frame. He affixes real, three-dimensional tires to the car and walks away once the job is done.
In 1998, Rhode began to document his performances with sequential photographs, thereby producing permanent images of his temporary street performances and blurring the lines between high and low forms of art. Rhode also uses stop-motion videos as part of his practice in a manner reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge’s ‘Animal Locomotion’ studies of the 1880s (see Lot 135 in Classic Photographs) The slideshow below animates the 28 panels that comprise White Walls (the present lot). It was created by Sotheby’s to illustrate the artist’s working process and does not represent the artwork for sale, which is a gridded installation comprised of 28 photographs.
Cars, like the one pictured in White Walls, are a recurring motif in Rhode’s practice. In 2003, Rhode performed Car Theft at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in which he drew a car on a wall before trying to break into it with real objects such as wire hangers; for Car Wash, also presented at the Walker in 2003, Rhode first drew and then washed away a similar vehicle. His inaugural NFT, minted in June 2021, also featured an animated car.
‘A car becomes a status symbol. It signifies economic and class structures. Therefore, over the years, I’ve attempted to draw and steal my cars, sometimes removing the tires and replacing them with bricks. I’ve even washed my car drawing in front of a live museum audience as a means to subvert the ownership of my creation. So it has been an ongoing dialogue between myself and the motor vehicle.’