An exciting new show is opening tonight, January 10, in New York! South African-born artist Robin Rhode will be taking over both of Lehmann Maupin’s New York galleries in a two-part exhibition. One gallery will feature a new series of his street-based photographs while the other will house an educational wall drawing intervention he’s conducting with Time In, a local outreach program specializing in arts education for underprivileged school children.
The exhibition at 540 West 26th Street, Take your Mind Off the Street, is dedicated to Rhode’s newest series of photographs. It includes a stunning triptych called Broken Glass which depicts a crowbar-wielding man shattering a larger-than-life wine glass. As Lehmann Maupin states, “This act of violence is amplified through scale and the absurdity of the subject matter, and in the context of Johannesburg, the artist’s hometown, symbolic of the violence and social inequality that continues to plague the city to this day.”
It’s also where you’ll find Bird on Wires, where Rhode traces the flight pattern of a bird as it makes its way from one perch to the next along a barbed wire fence. As we’d seen with Rhode before, he’s a master at creating interesting narratives using everyday materials like soap, charcoal, chalk or paint. His art is a unique mixture of multiple disciplines including photography, performance, drawing and even sculpture.
At the other location, 201 Chrystie Street, Rhode will take over the gallery’s walls for a site-specific intervention entitled Paries Pictus. A group of approximately 40 to 50 students, ranging in age from six to eight, from PS 63 in the South Bronx, will use over-sized crayons to color in geometric vinyl graphics applied directly to the walls by Rhode.
This show, which is Rhode’s first exhibition in New York in more than five years, is definitely one you don’t want to miss. Take Your Mind Off the Street will run till February 23 and Paries Pictus will be on view until March 9.
Above: ROBIN RHODE A Spanner in the Works of Infinity, 2012-2013 c-print 9 parts, each: 20 x 24 inches 50.8 x 61 cm Edition of 5 LM17074 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong
ROBIN RHODE A Spanner in the Works of Infinity (Detail), 2012-2013 c-print 9 parts, each: 20 x 24 inches 50.8 x 61 cm Edition of 5 LM17074 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong
ROBIN RHODE Broken Glass , 2012-2013 c-print 3 parts, each: 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm Edition of 5 LM16517 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong
ROBIN RHODE Bird on Wires, 2012-2013 c-print 8 parts, each: 20 x 24 inches 50.8 x 61 cm Edition of 5 LM16886 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong
ROBIN RHODE Pots, 2012 9 photographs 9 parts, each: 15.67 x 23.62 inches 39.8 x 60 cm Overall dimensions: 50.15 x 74 inches 127.4 x 188 cm Edition of 5
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong
ROBIN RHODE Pots (detail), 2012 9 photographs 9 parts, each: 15.67 x 23.62 inches 39.8 x 60 cm Overall dimensions: 50.15 x 74 inches 127.4 x 188 cm Edition of 5
Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York and Hong Kong