Ocula Conversation Cinga Samson: ‘a different conversation on representation’ By Jareh Das, New York Cinga Samson 's paintings lay bare the complex relationship between contemporary life, African traditions, globalisation, and representation. His strikingly sombre portraits contain similarities to those of contemporary painters such as Toyin Ojih Odutola, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye , Kehinde Wiley , Florine Démosthène, and Tunji...
Ocula Report Armory Week Lowdown: Art Shows to See By Casey Carsel, New York After structural issues forced The Armory Show into last-minute relocation pirouettes last year, the fair returns between 5 and 8 March 2020 with a flourishing programme, complemented by stand-out shows across New York City.
Ocula Insight At the freshly opened Winsing Art Place in Taipei, works by Vietnamese-Danish artist Danh Vo are being presented in Taiwan for the first time. In this video, the founder of Winsing Arts Foundation, Jenny Yeh, introduces Vo's exhibition.
Robin Rhode (b. 1976, Cape Town, South Africa) was raised in Johannesburg and graduated from the South Africa School of Film, Television and Dramatic Arts, Johannesburg, in 2000. The Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist engages a variety of visual languages such as photography, performance, drawing and sculpture to create arrestingly beautiful narratives that are brought to life using quotidian materials such as soap, charcoal, chalk and paint.
Read MoreComing 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 hip-hop, film, and popular sports on youth culture as well as the community’s reliance on storytelling in the form of colorful 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.
Given his first major museum solo show by Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, in 2007, Robin has since had major solo exhibitions at a number of important museums around the world, including the Hayward Gallery, London (2008); The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2009), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (2010). He has participated in notable group exhibitions, such as the 2012 Sydney Biennale; Staging Action: Performance in Photography Since 1960, MoMA, New York, and Framed, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana (both 2011); SITE Santa Fe Biennale and The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, MoMA, New York (both 2010); the 51st Venice Biennale (2005); and New Photography, MoMA, New York (2005). His work can be found in numerous public collections, including the Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa; Miami Art Museum, Florida; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The artist lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Ocula Conversation Robin Rhode By Diana d'Arenberg, Berlin For the past couple of decades Berlin has become an international art world Mecca attracting more than 20,000 artists from around the world, including some of the biggest names in contemporary art: Tacita Dean, French artist Bernard Frize, Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, and American artist Julie Mehretu have come to call Berlin an...
Ocula Report Hong Kong Autumn Exhibitions 2014: Walls, Landscapes And Dames By Diana d'Arenberg, Hong Kong Hong Kong seems to be growing out of its love affair with big brand artists, some of which have had about as much appeal as a vagazzler—overexposed, brash, bling. Gone are the dot paintings and Swarovski skulls, and Maos, as the city transitions to a deeper engagement with more challenging and engaging art.
Ocula Conversation Rachel Lehmann By Anna Dickie, Hong Kong Rachel Lehmann is not only one half of the gallery powerhouse that is Lehmann Maupin , but she is also an international citizen of the world. Lehmann was born in Asmara, Ethiopia, and studied at the University of Fribourg in France. She worked at the legendary Sonnabend Gallery in New York, and was the proprietor of two contemporary galleries in...
Related Press Contemporary Art of Africa Shines at Armory Week 2016 5 March 2016, MutualArt This spring, Africa arrives in New York. The city will be treated to an unprecedented opportunity to observe and experience a wide range of contemporary art from Africa and the Diaspora, sparked by the Armory Show’s focus on the region. Satellite fairs, performances, pop-up shows, museum and gallery exhibitions featuring contemporary African...
Related Press A classic operatic work, performed in Times Square 13 November 2015, The New York Times For the Performa 15 biennale, the South African artist Robin Rhode has chosen a demanding venue to stage a performance: in the thick of Times Square. This Saturday and Sunday, Rhode will reinterpret the Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg’s operatic monodrama Erwartung in the middle of the bustling tourist hub — a project that...
Related Press Art Interview: Robin Rhode 18 August 2015, BOMB Magazine Cape Town-born and Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist Robin Rhode works across visual media to interrogate notions of the city and urban landscapes, the individual, and the cultural collective. Rhode was recently announced as a commissioned artist for Performa 15, the biennial of performance art, taking place in New York November 1–22,...
Related Press Review: ‘Drawing Waves’ and ‘Borne Frieze,’ a Robin Rhode Twofer 10 August 2015, The New York Times For the South African artist Robin Rhode, drawing is never enough. He draws on gallery walls, then throws his body against the images he’s made, or drags his hands through the fresh chalk or charcoal. He draws in public places, in choreographed acts or in improvised, highly physical exertions. Drawing is not a stand-alone artistic medium; it...
