THE DAVID ROBBINS SHOW 1986-1988

The works comprising The David Robbins Show divide into two categories. One group includes works in which my name or image is foregrounded as a visual component. The other group includes collaborations in which my artistic identity is subsumed into the style or thematic concerns of the other artist. Identity inflation is juxtaposed with identity erasure. My first solo exhibition*, the Show offered the public construction of pubic identity, framed by the language of show biz.

The DR Show displaces the personality-based theatrical disposition associated with show business onto the grammars of material culture — objects and pictures — in which the art context specializes. No analysis or critique is evident, there is only a construction, an entertainment.

“In retrospect I understood that in The David Robbins Show I used the role of the artist as material. This was instinctive, and it set me apart from my peers in New York at the time. They were already artists making art, but I hadn’t gone to art school, I had no developed practice, and this is what my instinct served up under pressure. For better or worse, it really was mine. Using the role of the artist as material — in one way or another I’ve been doing this ever since. Keep stretching it, see where it can go, what it can become… \t’s the most consistent aspect of my work, actually, regardless of medium. It’s the thing I do naturally, and it was present as an organizing principle from the start.”

*The core works in the Show were exhibited in 1986 at Gallery Nature Morte, New York. Two works included above were added subsequent to that exhibition.

Reviews

Miller, John. “Swiss Family Robbins,” Real Life Magazine, August, 1986

Salvioni, Daniela. review. Flash Art, September, 1986