When we look at a picture, we can’t help but project ourselves into it. It doesn’t have to be highly realistic to have this effect on us. Robin Rhode, I think, is a great example of this phenomena.
He makes photographic series and videos in which he interacts with a drawing that he makes. The drawings are very simple. They’re the kind of drawings you might see on a wall as graffiti or a chalk drawing on pavement.
He uses this drawing to imagine himself performing feats of virtuosity, making the kinds of balletic slam dunks of a basketball that no human is in fact capable of. What happens is there’s the kind of a space that you become aware of between ordinary physical limits and the boundlessness of our aspiration.
Return to the artist page.
