Robin Rhode in "Johannesburg" - Season 9 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

♪ ♪

Robin Rhode: 
Split, split, split.

Come on, split.

Split, please.

Alright guys, strip the van, please.

I've been working here for about eight 
years.

I think the wall is fantastic in terms of
its scale.

There's an amazing crack in 
the surface, which appears in all of my works.

Drawing team!

I developed from a three-man crew

that would do pieces around Johannesburg

to this location here, which then developed to

a much larger crew of 10 persons,

consisting of guys that are from this particular area.

Over the last year or so, some of my team have
vanished. Two are currently in jail.

Kevin, here, is director of drawing.

Standby six-pack, Castle Lite. 
I want change and receipt.

Producing a work of art is easy.

It's surviving day-to-day life that's the
difficult part here.

This is the shoemaker. Shoemaker has been 
working with us for almost two years.

What's happening?

Shaun: 
All right, big man.

Robin Rhode: 
Big man! What's up, bru?

Shaun: 
All right, you bru? You well?

Robin Rhode:
This is Shaun.

Shaun:
You see when Robin gets here.

Start hooting here, beep, beep, beep, beep.

and then they all get you. Then they all all get here!

[laughter]

Robin Rhode:
Across the train line is Westbury, this is Newclare.

This is where I was raised.
This is where I grew up.

This is a colored area.

We are a community of 
mixed-race people.

We are African, Islamic,

but we have European ancestry as well.

- Standby coconut.

We reinvent various cultures.

Stand by.

Stand by, blade. Stand by, Unwrap boxes, please.

There will be a handover 
taking place this afternoon.

- Snap back.

To form this camaraderie,

to form this team,

We're going military.

- Try.

- We're German.

Robin Rhode: 
We're art soldiers.

- Shoemaker.

Discipline is a huge factor here.

- Randy, can you work?

Everyone's coming with their own personal 
issues and when we work, the issues need

to be left on the pavement.

Who votes for Randy in?

- I got two hands for you.

- Welcome aboard.

Robin Rhode:
Welcome aboard, Randy.

- Welcome, soldier.
- Welcome, soldier.

Robin Rhode: 
Thanks, guys. Let's push.

Let's finish this job.

My team are paid on a daily rate, but it's
beyond

just cash.

It gives him a sense of status, 
as somebody that is part of something really

positive and productive.

Your contribution, 
no matter what level it is, has value.

So I used to play football here.

I played under 12s, under 14s and under 16s.

I must say, when I was younger, 
the conditions were a lot better.

There's not much facilities for the youth 
to engage with.

So, there is also other modes of spending
their free time,

and that's a 
problem.

You have a beautiful park in this area,

but opposite the park is, like one of the 
biggest drug gang wars in Johannesburg.

You know, when I'm not here, this also creates
a huge vacuum for the team that I work with.

I'm not sure how productive they will be
if I'm not around,

or do they have an employment of some sort.

So, um, yeah. It's a major issue.

It's only a matter of time before I do a piece 
on this wall. It's only a matter of time.

♪ ♪ [hip-hop music] ♪ ♪

Strip the van please, unload. ASAP.

- Standby spirit level.

As a school kid, we had a form of hazing in the
toilets of the school.

We used to steal

the chalk in the classrooms, draw objects 
onto the toilet walls, and force young kids

to interact and engage with the drawings,

to ride a bike

or to blow out a candle.

I think that kind of planted the seed 
for my practice as a young artist.

♪ ♪

I used to create these performances for 
myself and for the camera, where I would

just draw an object on the wall and interact
with it.

One of the first objects I drew was the bicycle,

and then it became a television,
then it became a chair,

and it just began to extend 
itself further and further.

We use humor as a mode of survival, and 
we use play as a means to destabilize

various dominant structures.

- Standby!

- Wall touch up green, here.

Johannesburg, there is no art education whatsoever.

- Stand by, shot one!

And go!

Oh, beautiful, Kevin!

So how do we engage with minimalism?

- Thank you very much.

Minimalism. I would reference and rework 
in a kind of humor-orientated way.

Feet up higher, higher. Yes!
Two shots.

Standby bike.
Standby bike.

The Institute for Quality.
Building South Africa.

Child by Child.

So doppelganger is a kind of body double

to represent me in the works.

- Arm lower. Yeah.

The doppelganger also acts as a stand-in for 
the viewer. He's standing on the bike, lying

on the bike, never touching the surface of the

ground, trying to grapple with gravity,
in a way.

I'm trying to escape time.

Look up. Yeah. Two.

And this is why I've been 
so fascinated with geometry.

- Painters!

The simple geometric form allows for kind of transcendence

over time, over space, over geography

A lot of preparatory drawings take 
place in my studio, in Berlin.

Berlin just gives me that breathing space to

internalize what I've created in South Africa.

I first came to Berlin in 2001. I had a residency.

I met a beautiful woman, that eventually became my wife.

We have two sons. My family is what roots me to Berlin.

I think that being here has given me

a level of education that I never actually 
had in Johannesburg.

All those years ago,

I said that I would school myself by reading magazines,

going to exhibitions, going to museums.

[imitates piano]

Berlin has given me that kind of hands-on 
experience in understanding different artistic

movements, from the Bauhaus to Der Blaue Reiter.

I'm an artist that really loves art history.

When I think about the studio, I get really

emotional because it's luxury. It's 
the great space to think.

But I have an army on the street in Johannesburg,

and my studio is a beautiful piece of architecture.

A street corner in Johannesburg offers a lot
more danger and risk.

And the danger and risk becomes a kind of

subliminal effect on the energy of that work.

South Africa, there's a lot more vibrant,

a lot more colorful.

♪ ♪

Maxime Scheepers:
I am good friends with Kevin,

and Kevin has worked with Robin so many times before.

And I always just hear the stories of how
amazing it is.

- Yay. Thank you so much.

And I see the final product.

- You guys are so cool.

I've always wanted to work with him.

Robin Rhode:
Just take note that we, you know

once you put in a few missions,

you do receive the Amarillo bottle string.

Maxime Scheepers:
For levels.

Robin Rhode:
For levels. This is our levels,

our tour of duty.

If I combine that performance with what I'm 
drawing on the wall,

that can lead to a visual language.

Today, the drawing is replaced by a 
sculpture of children's jungle gyms

as a set for this particular performance piece.

Kevin: 
Given by you. And we say-

Maxime Scheepers: 
sow the seed

Kevin:
Paint the wall. Be at home

Together:
in our desert for all.

Robin Rhode: 
I was inspired by the poet,

James Matthews, and Gladys Thomas,

because the youth that they were referring to was myself,

being born in the mid-1970s.

Dedicated to all the children of South Africa

who will become one family, brothers and sisters.

It's the first collection of poems that 
was banned by the apartheid government.

It speaks of the white fences in society,

speaks about the city as a jungle,

demarcated areas,

identity and race, and these ideas are

playing out right now on the streets of South
Africa.

Kevin:
The poetry comes from two colored poets,

and we're both mixed race.

Learning them and reciting 
them

is the most beautiful part about this whole process.

It still relates to us now.

Maxime Scheepers:
But it's also harsh, I think, pieces of it.

It's something we want
to play with, you know?

Shh!

Maxime Scheepers:
A beautiful land with beautiful

mountains and beautiful seas,

but not for me.

Come, take my hand, 
stop touring and go slumming with me.

Kevin and Maxine: 
Look before your eyes.

Maxime Scheepers:
You see a jungle.

Kevin:
See the white cages.

Maxime Scheepers: 
With thousands of animals running wild.

Kevin: 
Look into their eyes. Haunted eyes.

Robin Rhode: 
We're working so much focus around the

aspect of youth, and we refer to the

youth as the born frees.

Maxime Scheepers: 
We say, sow the seed.

Kevin: 
Paint the wall.

And the born frees don't have the same experiences
as my generation have,

and the generation before me,

of understanding the mechanisms of apartheid.

So they are still trying
to find themselves

and find a position for themselves in society.

Robin Rhode: 
What do you guys want to do?

- Anything.

Robin Rhode:
Anything? You want to paint?

- Yeah, we can paint.

When you give young people a sense of worth,

you can really change your own identity and
sense of self.

And this is something that 
I try to communicate to my young crew.

When I see the works exhibited on a wall of
a gallery, of a museum, it's almost muted,

somehow.

But the energy and excitement of the process 
is so intoxicating.

- Standby photography.

That's why I always go back to the wall.

To learn more about Art21 and 
our educational resources,

please visit us online at pbs.org/art21.