Robin Kid

Interviews by Brainard Carey

©Studio ROBIN KID - Portrait of the artist at his studio in the Paris area. Robin Kid (b. 1991), is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist from Dutch descent. Raised by his grand parents in a post war little mining town in the rural south of Holland, Robin had difficulties fitting in at school and preferred to rush home to find his refuge in front of the American programs on TV. From re-runs of Davy Crocket, music videos on MTV to explosive fights on Jerry Springer and the commercials in between, Robin was mesmerized by the spectacle and power of American consumerism. After dropping out of high school and a short-lived career at Mc Donalds, he decided he would teach himself to paint and sculpt through YouTube as a way to navigate today’s world by drawing on the one of his childhood. His work hijacks a variety of social, political and traditional imagery of the past and present, with rebellious, religious, fantastical and in some ways offensive undertones. He pulls intuitively from the world of advertising, the Internet, the entertainment industry and his childhood memories, to produce ambitious, enigmatic and thought-provoking narratives, which question our polarized world of the 21st century. In parallel, Robin Kid’s solo exhibition The Future Is Old is on view at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art MOCO in Barcelona following his three-year solo exhibition at MOCO Amsterdam, and his monumental sculpture The State We Are In, In The Consciousness Of A Country’s Empty Mind as well as four paintings by the artist are on view at the Twenty-First Century Museum 21C in Louisville as part of the group exhibition This We Believe after its three-year exhibition at the 21C Museum in Chicago. ROBIN KID works are part of public, corporate and private collections in Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, China, South Korea, the UK and the USA. Searching for America by ROBIN KID - Solo show at TEMPLON NYC from Sept 04 to Oct 26 2024. 1 Left - SFA III and IV - Oil paint on canvas cast aluminum stainless steel various materials - Variable dimensions ©ROBIN KID. Courtesy the artist. 2 Middle - SFA VI - Oil paint on canvas cast aluminum stainless steel various materials - Variable dimensions ©ROBIN KID. Courtesy the artist. 3 Right - SFA VIII - Oil paint on canvas cast aluminum stainless steel various materials - Variable dimensions ©ROBIN KID. Courtesy the artist. It’s New Venom, 2023-2024 – ROBIN KID Oil on canvas, stainless steel, aluminum. 118 × 196 × 12 in. / 300 × 497 × 30 cm. Can You Tell Me The Way To Sesame Sreet?, 2023-2024 – ROBIN KID Oil on canvas, stainless steel, aluminum. 149 × 158 × 12 in. / 380 × 400 × 30 cm.