What Robin Rhode has in his hand might look like nothing more than a piece of chalk or charcoal—a simple drawing implement for scribbling. Yet even such a simple tool, wielded by Rhode to create his drawings, becomes a fascinating performance prop used to awaken memories of place and lend an imaginative voice to urban stories.

Rhode’s work uniquely combines street graffiti and performance. His installations are composed of sequentially framed photographs lined up in a way that brings them movement and life. Brought up in Cape Town, South Africa in the era of that country's apartheid policies, Rhode was one of a handful of colored students majoring in art. In such a social position, he came to question issues such as his own identity, the nature of ethnicity, and the history of his mother country. Jumping out into the public sphere, he creates works imbued with the rough-and-tumble but inventive energy of the street, resisting established artistic paradigms in favor of new adventures.

Many of Rhode’s early works created in South Africa involved relating stories that were comical on the surface but strongly underlain by a sense of the violent social experience of that country. But while Rhode's works are inspired by the idiosyncrasies of location, their mission is never mere condemnation of social and political history; rather, the artist's own physical presence and action between place and viewer helps join past to present, and within his abundant playfulness and humor he endeavors to cast questions before us, and to share stories.

Yet speaking only about Rhode's native background would not suffice to introduce fully his development of such unconventional artistic practices and freedom of imagination. In 2001 an artist-in-residence opportunity allowed him to relocate to Berlin. From this base, Rhode is an artist who intentionally places himself in the flow of global transition. His art is to respond to the situations he encounters wherever he goes, using the street as an impromptu performance stage. He transforms the energy of youth culture and the tension and speed of the city into concrete visualizations. Taking advantage of the shared language of contemporary urban and popular culture, he brings a sense of parity to places with otherwise different histories scattered across completely different continents while also bridging the space between the museum and the street.