OVERVIEW

Elliott Jamal Robbins

Liste Year

Year of Birth

Country of Birth

Presented by

2021

1988

United States

Kai Matsumiya

The transfigurational aesthetic of the figures in motion transgresses.

- The Lancer, The Liberator, The Marauder Press Release, Kai Matsumiya 2021

  • The Lancer, The Liberator, The Marauder, Kai Matsumiya Gallery, June 13 2021 - July 25 2021
Item 1 of 5

Elliott Jamal Robbins

Tap, Click, POW, Splash, Whoosh, Whir, and Tssk
Hand-drawn Animation
00:00:23
Edition of 10 + 2 APs
2019


“Through the use of appropriated and self-generated imagery and text, as well as the inclusion of the black male cartooned figure, the viewer is presented with a disjointed narrative. The narrative in question is an exploration of the intersection of societal readings of a black body, as well as a subjective experience, and the dichotomies to be found between. By collaging together bits of text, and the inclusion of a black figure, my work examines experience, with no concrete conclusions to be drawn or clear distinctions that can delineate the personal and the political. This body of work is as much a personal narrative, as it is an interrogation of the performative nature of blackness and masculinity.”

- Elliott Jamal Robbins quote from Snow White Clapping Press Release, Kai Matsumiya 2018

DSC 7278
Snow White Clapping Installation View, 2018

'Sadness feeling most intense when there is nothing to be done with it, can't be channeled, and the depression of your body on the mattress becomes sinister cave, stuck to National Public Radio's days before the US election, an anachronism replayed in your head, is made worse in actually having the recording. Enough emotional dissonance eventually causing psychologic desensitization, feeling a lot like living slumber.'

- Thursday, July 12, 2018 Elliott Jamal Robbins at Kai Matsumiya, Contemporary Art Writing Daily


Elliott Jamal Robbins
Nocturne: Sleep/Sleeplessness is the Cousin of Death

Film
5:57
Edition of 10 + 2 APs
2018

Elliott Jamal Robbins
Dive

00:00:04 (loop)
Edition of 10 +2AP
2018

'The animated short 5. Choo Choo Trains (2021) tells the equally whimsical and transgressive story of two men who delve into a dream state of bodily experiments. They dangle their penises, smoke pot, and glide through the air. In Robbins’s view: “[The] figures are all me, but none of them are really me.” Cyclops, the one-eyed mythological figure, makes an appearance, as does a human-bodied crow. These characters, rendered with a stylized, loose chunkiness, feel energetic and immediate. Robbins’s interest is in pushing the limits of storytelling. “The narrative is deliberately transgressive because I am curious what it means to be Black and create grim narratives today,” he says. His illustration of race and Black masculinity falls into a natural rhythm where dark humor meets a flair for the absurd.'

- Excerpt from The Guide Elliott Jamal Robbins Exhibition Review

  • The Lancer, The Liberator, The Marauder, Kai Matsumiya Gallery, June 13 2021 - July 25 2021
Item 1 of 3

The juxtaposition Elliott's earliest animations such as Nocturne (2018) to a more recent work, such a 5. Choo-Choo Trains (2021) present a revealing investigation on the development of the artist's practice. Over time, the protagonist metamorphoses from a figure unsure of his stance to one off on an adventure searching for solid ground. Themes of intersectionality and transfiguration still permeate the artist's general oeuvre, but agency replaces minstrelsy.


Subjectivity clashes with imposed structural understandings. The protagonist on his quest no longer faces the same dysmorphic manipulation extant in previous films. Catalyst for such change is evident in 2. Dive, where we witness the protagonist dive into a mouse-sized wall opening to face his problems. It is up to the viewer to decide whether the protagonist's actions represent self-reflection or avoidance; however, the transformation of self seen in the later works indicate a comfortability, or perhaps acknowledgement and acceptance of discomfort, through his approach to his societal standing.

Elliott Jamal Robbins (b. 1988) is a multi-media artist based in Tucson, Arizona, born and raised in the state of Oklahoma. He has held exhibitions at Nagel Draxler (Germany); Drawing Center (NY); Kunsthalle Kade (Amsterdam, Netherlands); Housing Gallery (NY); Phoenix Art Museum; Greene Naftali Gallery (NY); Flint Institute of the Arts; Martos Gallery (NY). He is the recipient of the Ecktenstein-Geigy award at ART Liste for excellence in the arts. He received his MFA from the University of Arizona (2017). His works have been reviewed in Art Forum, Hyperallergic, Contemporary Art Da ...

Liste Year

Year of Birth

Country of Birth

Presented by

2020

1988

United States

Kai Matsumiya

  • Elliott Jamal Robbins – Walk Cycle Series 2020 – Installation View
Item 1 of 2

In Elliott Jamal Robbins's work, the figure is both a manifestation of personal narrative and an embodiment of Blackness that troubles the notion of subjectivity. Employing the figure of a young boy with a curved spine and shoes that aesthetically bring to mind the early days of animation, the artist addresses the double-consciousness of his own experience and others similarly embroiled in internal conflict.

Robbins's "Walk-Cycle" paintings began in 2016 with a series of watercolors inspired by early animation portrayals of Black figures. After rendering, in a manner of aggression and internalized pain filtered through news about the killings of Black men at the hands of the police, Robbins shot the paintings with water guns, obscuring their forms and melting their actions. Continuing today, as it has throughout the history of Black life in America, this pain remains present and vital.

In Robbins' latest iterations of the Walk-Cycle series, the affective subject seems to walk beyond a matter-of-fact existence of subjectivity and escape into a field of abstraction. Here, the audience is asked to question inherent social conceptions of its subject's context, and defy any stereotyping of the racialized body. As the figure's world expands and contracts, its relationship to space transforms as a means of perceiving an ever-complicated world.

Elliott Jamal Robbins (b. 1988, Oklahoma City), lives and works in Tucson, AZ. Upcoming exhibitions include: Nagel Draxler, Berlin; Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, NL; The Drawing Center, New York. Recent exhibitions include: Kai Matsumiya Gallery, New York; Greene Naftali, New York; Nagel Draxler, Berlin; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ.