Robin Kirsten
My work combines museology, studio practice and performance.
In sculpture I mostly collect objects and place them into specific relations to each other, often using museum and visual merchandising display strategies to represent the narrative or references in the work. These narratives are often to do with my interest in the museum as a space of embodied experiences, which I use to consider questions about the mind, the structure of reality, infinite space and magical possibilites – as in quantum physics.
Often my studio features, particularly in my photographic self-potraits, as a space synonymous with thinking, philosophising and reinvention. In my PhD I took L'Atelier Brancusi in Paris, as an example of a type of space that operates as an artist's studio, a museum, and a potential model of the universe, depending on how you think about it. I frame it as a machine for knowing in.
Generally my work riffs off that research, which I am now exploring in a combined way, layering dance, artist film and sculptural installation, as a way to bring a different audience into my work, so that my ideas about embodied knowledge can be tested and explored.
August 2020
Education
2016 – 2020
PhD, Royal College of Art, London
2005 – 2007
MFA Fine Art Studio Practice, Goldsmiths College, London
2002 – 2005
BA History of Art and Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, London
Awards
2016
AHRC, Doctoral Scholarship Award
2014
British Council/Arts Council England Artists International Development Fund
2006
AHRC Professional Development Award
2005
Southwark Council Artist Production Award
2004
Arts Council England Research and Development Award
Exhibitions
2020
Studies for a Museum, Cape Town (solo)
2017
Daybreak, Safe House, London
2014
Give Me Your Energy, LOCAL Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile (solo)
2013
Creekside Open, London
Robo con Fractura, Local Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago, Chile
2012
John Moores Painting Prize, Liverpool
2011
Glue Gun, Vitrine Gallery, Hospital, London
2010
Tag: From 3 to 45. New London Painting, Brown Gallery, London
il alla a’ lai de l’ail, Crimes Town, London
The Milkplus Bar, Josh Lilley, London
2009
The Prada Cycle, Gallery Klerkx, Milan (solo)
3 Painters, Gallery Klerkx, Milan
2008
About, AutoItalia, London
Fire Red Gas Blue Ghost Green, Sassoon Gallery, London
Twilight of the Idols, Zinger Presents, Amsterdam (solo)
2007
Big Rock Candy Mountain, FormContent, London (solo)
Truck Art @ ART:CONCEPT, Paris
Republic, L’Est, London
2006
Lobby, One Moorhouse, London
Rag and Bone,Three Colts Gallery, London
On Fear and Reason, Haptic @ La Maison Rouge, Paris (solo)
Shaking Smooth Spaces, Le Generale, Paris
2005
4th Hull International Short Film Festival, UK
Truck Art, Prague Biennale 2, Czech Republic
2004
Shimrisham International Artist Film Festival, Sweden
Mälmo Festival, Sweden
Brick Lane Festival, London
2nd Elefest Film Festival, London
Corsica Studios, NEON/Shortwave Film Showcase, London
2003
Fuck Your War, Hôtel Bellville, London
It’s Just Whatever Cause I’m Trying To Be Clever, Hôtel Bellville, London (solo)
Kingdom, Austellingsraume 13, Hamburg (solo)
Switchspace Fundraiser, Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow