newsfromlondon201106

An ordinary thing looks more "alive" and more "real" in an artistic context, being it a gallery, a museum or the collectors' walls, than in reality itself. Robin Rhode (1976, Cape Town, South Africa) shows five animations, at White Cube Hoxton Square, until July 2011, that when confronted with that ordinary thing - chair designs of Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrut Rietveld - in reality we immediately anticipate its death: as when it is killed (Piano Chair, digital animation 3'50'', 2011), tossed in the air and broken (Military Chair, digital animation 1'20'', 2011), or kiked and thrown away (Kinderstoel, two-channel digital animation 2'20'', 2011). «A finite life expectancy is, in fact, the definition of ordinary life», and while changing the life expectancy of an ordinary thing Robin Rhode changes everything. Without changing anything. Rhode's through Variants mirrors this nonperceptible diference in the life expectancy of an item - a chair.