Robin Rhode Opens Solo Show at Lehmann Maupin
By: Darryl Wee
HONG KONG — South African-born artist Robin Rhode opens his debut exhibition in Hong Kong, “having been there,” at Lehmann Maupin on September 17.
As a leading member of a pioneer generation of post-apartheid artists from South Africa, Rhode is known for his poignant, elegiac approach to social issues imbued with a poetic personal perspective. Drawing on a wide swathe of imagery related to consumerism and everyday experience, Rhode creates situations that borrow the language of street art and combine it with a certain performative flair.
The title, “having been there,” is a reference to Roland Barthes, who wrote that photography is “not a perception of the being there of an object…but a perception of its having been there.” In an analogous way, Rhode’s insertion of himself into his photographic image explores the idea of vestigial traces of a now vanished presence — of “having been there.”
Featuring a selection of photographic works and wall drawings, the exhibition will also unveil a new animation piece made especially for this Hong Kong show.
