Automatic Drowning
A dynamic sequence of eighteen colour photographs mounted to aluminium, *Automatic Drowning* captures a performative narrative unfolding across the wall and floor in Robin Rhode's signature style. The work traces a figure's interaction with a drawn or painted environment, blurring the boundaries between two-dimensional mark-making and live bodily action. Rhode's use of sequential imagery transforms the static photograph into a cinematic experience, evoking themes of struggle, surrender, and the precarious relationship between the body and its surroundings.
- Medium
- colour coupler print, mounted to aluminium (in 18 parts)
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Contemporary Art Day Sale
February 15, 2013
Artists in conversation
Duane Michals
American · b. 1932
Michals pioneered sequential photography to construct cinematic narratives, using series of still images to convey psychological and emotional journeys that unfold across frames, closely mirroring Rhode's multi panel storytelling approach in Automatic Drowning.
William Kentridge
South African · b. 1955
As a fellow South African artist, Kentridge similarly blurs the boundaries between drawing, performance, and photography, creating works where bodily action interacts with hand drawn environments to explore themes of struggle and transformation with surrealist undertones.
Eadweard Muybridge
British · b. 1830
Muybridge's pioneering sequential photographic studies of human bodies in motion established the visual language of breaking movement into discrete frames, a foundational technique Rhode directly echoes in his eighteen part performative photographic sequence.
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