Powerful statements, modest means: Robin Rhode’s ’Borne Frieze’ opens at Lehmann Maupin
'Exercise goal achieved!' cries Robin Rhode, peering down at the Apple Watch on his wrist and then raising both arms in triumph. 'I did it – phew!' But there's no stopping him. The South African-born, Berlin-based artist is in the midst of an invigorated lap around Lehmann Maupin's Chelsea space, where his third solo exhibition with the gallery – titled 'Borne Frieze' – is on view until 21 August. Loping among the show's four installations, he punctuates rapid-fire comments with claps and snaps, his infectious personal intensity rivalled only by that of his work.
'I wanted to use the architecture of the gallery to create environments for my pieces, so I could work throughout each space, all the way down to the floor,' says Rhode, 39, pausing in the darkened front room filled by Light Giver Light Taker (all works 2015). Two giant lightbulb sculptures made of charcoal and chalk, respectively, lie on the dark grey floor, which bears the whirled traces of Rhode's dragging and pulling of their opaque forms.
Animated by strobe lights, the scene transforms a universal symbol for ideation into outsized drawing tools poised to go another round, evoking the lightbulb-illuminated coal cellar of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Inspirations for the piece include a t-shirt depicting 'Black Inventors and Their Inventions' such as Lewis Latimer, who drafted patent drawings for the likes of Alexander Graham Bell and later improved upon Edison's electric light with carbon filament bulbs. Rhode bought the t-shirt at a New Orleans supermarket in 2007 and frequently wears it while at work in his studio, he explains, 'because in Southern Africa where I'm from, the idea of a black man inventor is totally foreign'.
Unreliable light sources, however, are commonplace in his native country, where an energy crisis fueled by a floundering power monopoly has led to frequent blackouts. 'Issues in Johannesburg – the power cuts – were another point of inspiration for this piece,' says Rhode. 'Light is becoming quite scarce at the moment.'
Another room is devoted to Chalk Bike, for which the walls have been coated in black chalkboard paint and hung with white window frames that open inward to suggest an exterior scene. An actual bike, its steel frame whitewashed in chalk, stands among sketched cycles, and the floor is dotted with newspapers on which sit sneakers darkly haloed in spray paint. The work is a reference to an initiation rite that Rhode recalls from high school: underclassmen were forced to play-act with chalk drawings. 'With this particular environment, the chalk stolen from the classroom and the drawing on the concrete walls of the school now manifests itself into the actual chalk bicycle,' says the artist, who points to the newspaper pages of last week's New York Times as a way of dating the work.
Wafting through the exhibition is the deep, deliberate voice of South African poet and activist Don Mattera, whose dreamy elegy, The Moon Is Asleep, accompanies Rhode's film of the same name. Evoking both Sesame Street and surrealism, the Super 8 footage shows a boy (the artist's son, Elijah) sleeping against a wall that becomes a canvas for a shifting ocean of wavy lines and phases of the moon.
'These low-fidelity materials and techniques – black and white, chalk and charcoal, Super 8 film – are present throughout the show,' says Rhode. 'I'm a firm believer that we can make so many powerful statements by using very modest means.' Exercise goal achieved.
ADDRESS
Lehmann Maupin
536 W 22nd St,
NY 10011, New York
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Vipp’s Scandinavian guesthouse offers a sleek setting amid a wild landscape
Vipp Cold Hawaii is a Scandinavian guesthouse designed by architecture studio Hahn Lavsen in Denmark’s Thy National Park
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
Aston Martin DBX707 SUV is updated with a new interior and infotainment
The new Aston Martin DBX707 has better tech, better design but the same raw power, keeping its spot at the top of the ultra-SUV tree
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Dark watches show it’s time to embrace an inky palette
Discover new dark watches from brands including Audemars Piguet, Omega, Chanel and Tudor
By Hannah Silver Published
-
The cosmos meets art history in Vivian Greven’s New York exhibition
Vivian Greven’s ‘When the Sun Hits the Moon’, at Perrotin in New York City, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the USA
By Emily McDermott Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Tony Notarberardino’s Chelsea Hotel Portraits preserve a slice of bygone New York life
‘Tony Notarberardino: Chelsea Hotel Portraits, 1994-2010’, on show at New York’s ACA Galleries, is the photographer’s ode to the storied hotel he calls home and its eclectic clientele
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published