Walter Robinson is a painter and art critic.
He began painting in New York during the late 70’s, where he was associated with the Picture Generation and soon became a key figure of the local scene. He is also known for his work as an editor and critic: he was the publisher of Art-Rite and then co-founded the Artnet magazine. As a critic, he coined the term «zombie formalism» in 2014, fuelling many debates.
Working primarily with figuration, Robinson often appropriates images from images and popular culture: adverts for Target, Land’s End and other cheap fashion catalogues (Normcore series), pulp fiction covers (Romance series) as well as pictures of food or pharmaceutical products (Still Lives). More recently, Robinson started creating a series of works produced with artificial intelligence.
Always ironic but never cynical, Robinson’s visual language testifies to the role of images in manifesting Western consumerist desires.
Recent solo exhibitions include Escape to Adventure, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022), C’est le destin bébé, Air de Paris, Romainville, FR (2021); Modern Times, Galerie Sébastien Bertrand, Geneva, CH (2020); and Romance, Cigarettes and More, Pure Joy, El Paso St. Marfa, TX (2019). Recent group exhibitions include Luncheon on the Grass, Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, CA (2021); Brand New: Art and Commodity in the 1980’s, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2018); Zeitgeist, MAMCO, Geneva, CH (2017) and Fast Forward: Painting from the 1980s, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2017).
Robinson’s work can be found in prominent collections including Museum of Modern Art, New York, US; Whitney Museum, New York, US; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Winston-Salem, US; Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, KO, US; and Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon.
EXHIBITIONS
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