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In Wall of Water Robin Rhode has created one of his arresting narratives. The compelling photograph depicts a character, dressed in a white doctor’s coat, placing a stethoscope against the wall’s surface below a painted water droplet. This spontaneous act implies that the wall embodies life-like qualities, such as a heartbeat, and the character’s ears are filled with the sound of the water drop. In addition, as with many of Rhode’s photographs, the character is masked, and meant to remain unknown, universal, and timeless.
Like much of Rhode’s photographic work, Wall of Water is heavily influenced by the early methods of motion photography and motion pictures, often seen in the work of Eadweard Muybridge. A sense of spontaneity and action is also a vital aspect of Rhode’s work, and this work embodies the rebellious nature of graffiti and street art with the body-based performance art of the 1970s.
The Los Angeles Times has written of Rhode’s work, “It may be tempting to lump Rhode in with other artists who document physical performances, but his work is another species entirely. Each image is carefully staged for the camera—in some cases requiring that an entire wall be repainted for each shot. The resulting sequences suggest a combination of live action and animation, a space somewhere in between the reality we inhabit and the one we imagine.”
Robin Rhode is one of 11 artists recently invited by U2 to interpret tracks from the bands 2014 album Songs of Innocence. He is also the recipient of the 2014 Roy R. Neuberger Exhibition Prize, a biennial prize which celebrates an exceptional artist with an early-career survey and catalogue. Robin Rhode: Animating the Everyday, a 10-year survey of his work, was on view at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York.
